Italians

 

Italians (Italiani)
Galileo • Michelangelo • Leonardo da Vinci • Alessandro Volta Guglielmo Marconi • Maria Montessori • Maria Gaetana Agnesi • Giordano Bruno
Total population
120 - 140 million (est.)
Regions with significant populations
Italy      56 million (95% population of Italy)
Brazil 25 million [8]  Argentina 18 million  United States 16.6 million [9]  France 1.5 million (see note) [10]  Venezuela 1-2 million  Uruguay 1.5 million  Canada 1.3 million [11]  Australia 1 million [12]  Switzerland 750,000 [1]  Germany 611,000 [13]  Belgium 280,000 [14]  United Kingdom 133,000 [14]  Chile 150,000 [14]  Costa Rica 122,500  Paraguay 100,000  Spain 95,337 [15]  South Africa 35,000 [14]  Cuba 33,245 [16]  San Marino 28,000  Luxembourg 20,000  Croatia 19,636 [17]  Peru 13,500 [18]  Monaco 10,000  Ireland 5,811 [19]
Language(s)
Italian, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Corsican, Sardinian, Eastern Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Insubric Lombard, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Venetian, Ladin, Friulian
Religion(s)
predominantly Roman Catholic

The Italians are a Southern European ethnic group found primarily in Italy and in a wide-ranging diaspora throughout Western Europe, the Americas and Australia. Their native language is Italian, and historically Italian dialects and languages. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic.

The Italian people have varied European origins; Northern Italy had a strong Celtic presence until the Romans conquered and colonised the area in the 2nd century BC, which lead to thousands of Romans and Italians migrating to the North. The Central portion of the Italian peninsula was settled by the Etruscans and Latin peoples. The South was mostly Greek and other Italic peoples such as the Bruttii and Samnites. Sicily was predominately made up of the Sicani and Sicels, before the Greeks moved in. The appellation Italian is possibly derived from the Greeks who used the term to describe the Ancient Italic peoples, who pre-date the coming of Indo-European languages.

There are almost 56 million autochthonous Italians in Italy, about 750,000 Italian speaking people in Switzerland,^[1] and about 28,000 in San Marino. There is also a large but undefined, autochthonous population in France (Nice, Corsica, Savoie). Smaller groups can also be found in Slovenia and Croatia. There is a notable population of Italian descent in Brazil (Italian Brazilians), Argentina, the United States (Italian Americans), Venezuela, Uruguay, Canada (Italian Canadians), Australia (Italian Australians), and throughout Europe- mainly in Belgium, United Kingdom (Italian-Scots/Britalian), France and Germany (Italo-Germans).

Historical background

Main article: History of Italy

The history of the Italian people is ancient and stretches back millennia to Paleolithic times. With the rise of agriculture by the 6th millennium BC, Italy's population grew. Indo-European languages reached Italy between 2000 and 1200 BC and their speakers mingled with the local Italic tribes. The Bronze Age by the 2nd millennium BC shows mutual influences involving the Aegean and the first folks of the Italian Peninsula and his islands. Minoan and Mycenaean influences can be seen in archaeological finds in the Lipari islands near Sicily, while Sardinian influences can be found in the Greek buildings and artcrafts of Mycenae and Minoa. While, early Latin peoples dominated the north, Greeks settled parts of the south Italy and the small islands of Sicily. The use of iron is seen as evidence of a strong influence from the north as the Latin language developed near the Tiber region.

By the 8th century BC, ancient Rome bore, while Phoenician Semites settled the wetsern part of Sicily and the Greek colonists settled in eastern Sicily and along the coast near modern Naples. These early Greeks formed independent city-states that often fought each other, but mainly prospered as more Greeks arrived due to overpopulation and political struggles in Greece. Around the same time period, Etruscans began to develop a state of their own. The origins of the Etruscans remain a mystery; speculation points towards their early forebears coming from Lydia or Troy in western Anatolia, while other sources contend that they were an indigenous Italian people. Etruscan language remains undeciphered. Trade with the Greeks to the south brought prosperity to Italy.

Etruscans and Greeks began to lose their holdings in Italy as Gauls (a Celtic group) invaded the north and Romans overthrew their Etruscan rulers to become masters of the peninsula. From 509 to 202 BC, the Roman Republic conquered all of Italy and engaged in the Punic wars led by Scipio Africanus against Carthage and general Hannibal Barca. Though Hannibal invaded Italy and inflicted several defeats on the Romans, the Romans prevailed and ended Carthaginian power, to become masters of the Mediterranean and North Africa. More territory was acquired throughout the republican era by gifted generals such as Gaius Marius, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar including the Near East and much of Europe. This expansion led to the start of a new empire the likes of which had not been seen in Europe. Until the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius,the Roman Empire which lasted from 27 BC to 476 AD knew few rivals in the world. It slowly declined due to Germanic invaders from the north, pressures from the Persians in the east and most importantly, an enormous economic recession in part caused by the weak central government, outsourcing of their military and massive civil wars of the 3rd Century.

Remnants of the empire survived and during the reign of Constantine I The Christian faith emerged as the main religion and completely transformed the early Italians. Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards, and other Germanic peoples conquered Italy in the 5th and 6th centuries, but were themselves romanized. Bulgars also came with the Lombards. A small group, Alcek (also transliterated as 'Altsek' and 'Altzek'), led by Emnetzur, settled in northeast of Naples.^[2]

In 827 AD, the island of Sicily was invaded, starting the period of Arab influence in Sicily, Sardinia and lower portions of Apulia, particularily Bari. When the Normans (a Christian people of Nordic, Celtic and Frankish origins) completely conquered the Arab controlled regions in 1072 AD, they began an extensive conversions, and some deportations of the Siculo Muslims, sending the few remaining Muslims to Lucera in Apulia, while some returned to North Africa.[1]

Also to note in the early 16th century, the expanding Spanish Empire included the southern half of Italy (i.e. Calabria, Naples, Apulia, Sardinia and Sicily) and some Spanish features in culture and language appeared in local identities, though Spanish rule in southern Italy (later they became the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) lasted only until the late 1700s.^[3]

Italy emerged from the Middle Ages as an important centre of religion, as the Papacy gave the region significant political clout and authority throughout the Christian world. The Normans conquered southern Italy and Sicily by the 11th century, but over time they were absorbed by the local population. Numerous city-states maintained a high degree of autonomy that led to literally hundreds of Italian dialects that were often unintelligible to other Italians. The age of the Renaissance can be traced to the creative and commercial activity that began in Italy with the international trade and exchange of ideas coming through the powerful city-states such as Florence, Milan, Rome and Venice. The Italian Renaissance was carried later in France, UK, Spain and Denmark.

By the 15th century, many of the Italian city-states began to be dominated by the "Principati" (regional States). This system of regional States (Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples) maintained a political balance for most of the 15th Century, but experienced a sharp crisis following 1498 (French invasion). The Italian Wars, fought by the nation-states of Spain and France, in movable alliances with the Italian states, gave way to the predominance of Spain and then of the Habsburg Austrian Empire until the rise of Italian nationalism. Napoleon's efforts in fusing Italy into a single unit inspired many local nationalists in both the north and south to seek some form of unification. This risorgimento period in the 19th century was, for various reasons, supported by France and Great Britain, while the Habsburg Empire was the principal target of conspirations and insurrections. Italy with the exception of Rome and Venice became a nation-state led by the King of Sardinia, from the House of Savoy in 1861 and other charismatic leaders such as Giuseppe Garibaldi and his famous redshirts. After ten years of resistance from the Pope and the clergy, Rome was incorporated with the rest of Italy and made the capital of the new state, Italy was finally unified for the first time since the end of the 6th century AD. Major changes began to unfold in 1896, the country experienced unparalleled industrial growth and social progress. Following numerous conflicts including World War I, the Axis Alliance in World War II along with the rise and fall of a short lived Italian Empire, Italy emerged in its modern incarnation with borders that largely corresponded to an Italian majority population.

Origins of Italian people

The Italian peninsula has been populated by a number of people throughout history besides the original Italic tribes. The Gauls in the north, the Etruscans in Central Italy (Tuscany and parts of Umbria and Latium) and the Phoenician Semites in Sicily and Greeks in the south preceded the Romans, who in turn "Latinised" the whole country and preserved unity until the 5th century AD.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in 476 AD, the Italian peninsula was invaded by Germanic peoples crossing the Alps, establishing settlements in north-central Italy and to a lesser degree in the south. The Germanic tribes underwent rapid Latinisation and were assimilated into the native Latin-speaking majority. There is a German minority in Northern Italy. Most Italians are descended from the Romans ^{[citation needed]}. The Roman Empire encompassed a large number of people that included Greeks, Egyptians, Germans, North Africans, Celts, Jews and Syrians, evident by the multi-ethnicity of the Roman emperors, which for centuries prior was ruled only by Romans and Italians until the reign of Septimius Severus in 197 AD.

The Byzantine Greeks were an important power in Italy for five centuries, fighting for supremacy first against the Ostrogoths and later against the Germanic Lombards of Benevento. Greek speakers were fairly common in Calabria and Apulia until the 11th century when their rule ended: a few small Greek-speaking communities still exist in southern Italy and Sicily.

In 827 AD, the island of Sicily was invaded starting the period of Arab influence in Sicily and Apulia especially Bari. Arabs, Jews and Berbers settled^{[citation needed]} Sicily and Apulia until the Norman Christians (of Viking and Celtic origin) conquered much of southern Italy and Sicily and began converting the majority of Arab and Siculo Muslim population and sending the remaining Muslims into exile in Lucera were they lived until the 14th century.

Starting from the 15th to 16th centuries, southern Italy especially experienced a wave of refugees from Albania where their descendants, language, customs and religious elements still exist in communities in Calabria, Apulia and Sicily, and are collectively know as Arbereshe.

There are still small Greek fishing villages, Maltese-Italian residents whose family originated from Malta under Italian and then British rule from the 18th to the mid 20th centuries, and Catalan communities in Sardinia to this day.

For more than 500 years (12th to 17th centuries) after Norman rule, Swabian (German), and Angevin (French) swapped control of regions in Italy, predominately southern Italy and Sicily. During the 11th through 16th century the majority of city-states from Northern and Central Italy remained independent. This independence led to great wealth and a strong economy, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of perspective in painting, and advancements in science and architect, and a revival of learning based on classical sources of Roman history and culture now known as the Renaissance. In the 13th century, Norman rule in Sicily ended to be succeeded by the Aragonese the Spanish in southern Italy. Some Spanish features in culture and language appeared in the identity of the occupied areas.

In 1720, Sicily came under Austrian Habsburg rule and was swapped between various European powers until Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered Sicily and Southern Italy, allowing for the annexation of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies into the new Italian state in 1860.

In very general terms, many Northern Italians tend to have fairer complexions, somewhat similar to central Europeans, along with a higher frequency of light-coloured hair (see image) and eyes. Most Southern Italians tend to have darker features, similar to other peoples of Southern Europe such as the Spaniards and the Greeks.^[4] Due to population movements throughout Italy's history, these physical characteristics are not greatly pronounced.

Italian society and culture

Historically, Italians have been more loyal to their town and region than to the state. This is still evident in Italian culture today, even as the Italian language replaced the numerous dialects and Gallo-italic and Italic languages, such as Sicilian, Venetian, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Lombard, Sardinian, Piedmontese, Ligurian (also known as Genoese), Friulian, Ladin, Franco-Provençal and Neapolitan. Standard Italian originated in literature of the 12th to 15th centuries, and was based on the dialects of Tuscany, along with influences of Sicilian and Venetian. In the 19th Century, Standard Italian became more common and helped unify the country.

Some non-Italian speaking minorities live within Italy. Thousands of German Bavarian speakers remain in the extreme north region of South Tyrol. Portions of the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region have a small Slovene-speaking minority of Slavic origin. A small cluster of French-speaking people live in the province of Aosta and a small Catalan-speaking enclave in Sardinia goes back five centuries after first settled by Catalans from Catalonia in Spain. Two minor Italic languages are spoken outside of modern Italy- Corsican in Corsica, France and Romansch in eastern Switzerland.

Since the 19th century, the economic disparity between the industrial north and the agrarian southern and north-eastern regions resulted in mass migration from the southern regions to the Americas, northern Italy and to other parts of Western Europe such as France and Belgium. Economic conditions in the poorer regions of Italy improved, even in the south, to the point that even the less-developed regions of the Mezzogiorno receive immigrants rather than send immigrants outwards. Today, Italy is less urban than other countries in Europe, with 67% of Italians living in a major urban area- compared to 76% of French, 88% of Germans and 90% of Britons. The vast majority of Italians live outside of the large (over 1,000,000 population) cities.^[5]

Some controversial recent global IQ testing (2006) suggests that Italians have the highest IQ scores in Europe.[2]

Italian diaspora and Italians abroad

Main article: Italian diaspora

There is a history of Italians working and living outside of the Italian peninsula since ancient times. Italian bankers and traders expanded to all parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, sometimes creating outposts. Since the Renaissance, the services of Italian architects and artists were sought by many of Europe's noble courts. This migration, though generally small in numbers and sometimes ephemeral, pre-dates the unification of Italian states.

Italy became an important source for emigrants after 1870. More than 10 million Italians emigrated between 1870 and 1920, mostly from the country's underdeveloped southern regions and the agrarian north-east regions.^{[citation needed]} In the beginning (1870-1880), the main destination of the migrants were other European countries (France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), where most Italians worked for some time and then returned to Italy. Many Italians also went to the Americas, especially to Brazil, Argentina and the United States. From about 1880 until the end of the early 1900s, the main destinations for Italian immigrants were Brazil, Argentina as well as Uruguay and Venezuela.[3] Brazil was in need of workers to embrace the vast coffee plantations, and Italian immigrants became a main source of manpower for that country. Argentina and Uruguay were rapidly industrializing and attracting immigrants for work and settlers to populate the country. Italian immigration heavily influenced the culture and development of these countries (Today, Argentina and Uruguay have the highest national concentrations of Italians outside of Europe - about 50% of the population in each country).[4] Starting in the early 20th century until the 1950s, the United States became a main destination for Italian immigrants, settling mainly in the New York metropolitan area, as well as cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago. Other countries that received large numbers of Italians, primarily from about 1940 to the 1970s, were Australia, Canada, and again Venezuela. Smaller migration patterns of Italians went to Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Panama and Corsicans constituted a large proportion of immigrants to Puerto Rico. (see Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico).

In other waves of Italian migration, from 1920 to the 1970s (peaking in the periods of WWI and WWII), Italian "guest workers" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany, and Luxembourg.[5] Like the earlier waves, most Italians returned to Italy, but some remained and assimilated in these countries.

The migration of Italians has at times been very large and has influenced much of the world. It can be estimated as many as 70 million people of Italian origin live outside Europe, primarily in the Americas. Large numbers of Italian descendants are found in Brazil (25 million people of Italian descent), Argentina (18 million), the United States (17 million -unofficial estimates claim as many as 26 million),^[6] Canada (1.3 million) and Australia (1 million).

Significant Italian expatriate population is noted in Cyprus, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Israel, Malta, Morocco, Spain, Turkey and South Africa. Former Italian communities once thrived in their African colonies of Eritrea, Somalia and Libya (150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population) until the late 20th century.^[7] Today, with the economic assimilation of the European Union Italians, as other Europeans, are mobile throughout Europe and can be found in most major centres in Europe.

Within Italy

From the Lombard invasion until the mid-nineteenth century, Italy was not the nation-state as we know it today. The landmass was fractured into various kingdoms, duchies, and domains. Over the centuries, dialects or regional minority languages and customs evolved differently as a result of isolation of the kingdoms from one another, and their being influenced by foreign powers. While all these states were similar in that they retained basic elements of Roman language and culture, each one built upon this ancient culture to develop their own independent culture and ethnic identity. Even to this day, Italians living in their homeland define themselves by their home region or even by their home province, and many speak the local dialect or regional language in addition to standard Italian. In the 1980s and 1990s, small regional separatist movements (that never reached more than 5% of the national vote) developed in the Northern regions of Italy (where they promoted support for a new nation-state nicknamed Republic of Padania), in Sicily and in Sardinia.

Italians and Italia irredenta

Main article: Italia irredenta

The process of unification of the Italian people in a national State was not completed in the nineteenth century. Many Italians remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy and this created the Italian irredentism.

Italia irredenta (Unredeemed Italy) was an Italian nationalist opinion movement that emerged after Italian unification. It advocated irredentism among the Italian people as well as other nationalities who were willing to become Italian and as a movement; it is also known as Italian irredentism. Not a formal organization, it was just an opinion movement that claimed that Italy had to reach its "natural borders". Similar patriotic and nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the 19th century.

Italian irredentism obtained an important result after World War I, when Italy gained Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and the city of Zara. During WWII Italy defeated Yugoslavia and created the "Governatorato di Dalmazia" (from 1941 to September 1943), so the Kingdom of Italy annexed temporarily Spalato (Split), Cattaro (Kotor) and most of coastal Dalmatia. From 1942 to 1943 even Corsica (Corse) and Nizza (Nice) were temporarily annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, nearly totally fulfilling in those years the requests of the Italian irredentism.

The movement had for its avowed purpose the emancipation of all Italian lands still subject to foreign rule after Italian unification. The Irredentists took language as the test of the alleged Italian nationality of the countries they proposed to emancipate, which were Trentino, Trieste, Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, Ticino, Nice (Nizza), Corsica and Malta. Austria-Hungary promoted Croatian interests in Dalmatia and Istria to weaken Italian claims in the western Balkans before WWI. After WWII the irredentism movement has faded away in the Italian politics. Only a few thousands Italians actually remain in Istria and Dalmatia as a consequence of the Italian defeat in WWII and of the forced removal of Italians (Istrian exodus) by Tito's Yugoslavia.

Contribution to humanity

Main articles: Italian culture, History of Italy, and List of Italians

The people of Italy have contributed significantly to world culture and scientific, and technological, progress continuously since ancient times. In the Arts, Italy produced some of the most influential sculptors, writers and painters. Notable examples include Michelangelo, Dante, Pirandello and Raphael. Italian composers and musicians, such as Vivaldi, Rossini and Verdi, contributed to the evolution of western music, and Italians are cited with the creation of the opera. Great Italian scientists include Alessandro Volta, Guglielmo Marconi, Enrico Fermi, Galileo and Giordano Bruno. Italian contributions to architecture and engineering are unparalleled since ancient times. Renowned architects include Brunelleschi, Bernini and Palladio.

The rise of humanism and modern commerce can be attributed to conditions found in Italy during the Renaissance. This ambience also lead to the rise of the "universal man", of which Leonardo da Vinci can be considered the prime example.

See also

List of Italians List of Sardinians List of Italian Jews Demography of Italy Italian Citizenship Italian diaspora African Italians Italian American Anglo-Italians Italian-Argentines Italian Australians Italo Brazilian Britalian Italian Canadians Italian Chileans Dalmatian Italians

Italians in Egypt Italian-French people Italo-Germans Italian-Irish people Italian Jews Italian Mexican Italian Peruvian Italians of Romania Italian-Scots Italian South Africans Swiss Italians Italian-Uruguayans Italian-Venezuelans White Latin Americans European ethnic groups Genetic history of Europe

References

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