ITALIAN
Excerpts from Wikipedia.org
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, 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, Argentina, the United States, Venezuela, Uruguay, Canada, Australia, and throughout Europe- mainly in Belgium, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
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. 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 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 and eyes. Most Southern Italians tend to have darker features, similar to other peoples of Southern Europe such as the Spaniards and the Greeks. Due to population movements throughout Italy's history, these physical characteristics are not greatly pronounced, but still are noticeable.
Italians and 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, 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.
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 royal 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. 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. 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). 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.
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. 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) (out of a population of 36 millon), the United States (15 million), Canada (1.3 million) and Australia (1 million).
Significant Italian expatriate population is noted in Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, 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. 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.
Tuscany
Tuscany (Italian: Toscana; video) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. The regional capital is Florence.
The Etruscans were the first major civilization in this region of Italy. The people who formed the civilization lived in the area (called Etruria) well into prehistory. The civilisation grew to fill the area between the rivers Arno and Tiber from the eighth century, reaching their peak during the seventh and sixth centuries BC, and finally ceded all power and territory to the Romans by the first century. Throughout their existence, they lost territory to the surrounding civilisations of Magna Graecia, Carthage and Gaul.
Tuscany is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance movement, and its artistic heritage includes architecture, painting and sculpture, collected in dozens of museums in towns and cities across the region. Perhaps the best-known are the Uffizi, the Accademia and the Bargello in Florence. Tuscany was the birthplace of Dante Alighieri ("the father of the Italian language"), Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli. The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the the late Middle Ages and spreading through the rest of Europe. The Middle Ages are commonly marked by the fall of the Roman Empire and rise of Renaissance. Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there's a real gap of culture, where things are very, very different from the Classical period. One of the things that was lost is literature in modern languages. All the literature produced during this era is in Latin. With the onset of the Renaissance, that all changes, we get the creating of literature all through Europe in the languages people speak. The Renaissance was then about going back and reclaiming all that was lost during the Classical era.
Tuscany is known for its landscapes and its artistic legacy. Six Tuscan localities have been made UNESCO protected sites: the historical center of Florence (1982), the historical center of Siena (1995), the square of the Cathedral of Pisa (1987), the historical center of San Gimignano (1990), the historical center of Pienza (1996) and the Val d'Orcia (2004).
* DNA Analysis Has Cleared Up The Origins of the Etruscans by Stefan Anitei
* DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy by The New York Times
* Mitochondrial DNA Variation of Modern Tuscans Supports the Near Eastern Origin of Etruscans by A. Achilli, et al.
* The Mystery of Etruscan Origins: Novel Clues from Bos Taurus Mitochondrial DNA by Marco Pellecchia, et al.
* Ancient Etruscans Were Immigrants from Anatolia, or What Is Now Turkey by European Society of Human Genetics
* Genetic Predisposition to Rheumatoid Arthritis in a Tuscan (Italy) Ancient Human Remain by G. Fontecchio, et al.
* The Etruscans: A Population-Genetic Study by Cristiano Vernesi, et al.
* Serial Coalescent Simulations Suggest a Weak Genealogical Relationship Between Etruscans and Modern Tuscans by EM Belle, et al.
Sicily
Throughout much of its history, Sicily has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for Mediterranean trade routes. The area was highly regarded as part of Magna Graecia. About 750 BC, the Greeks began to colonize Sicily, establishing many important settlements. The most important colony was Syracuse.
While Greek Syracuse controlled much of Sicily, there were a few Carthaginian colonies in the far west of the island. When the two cultures began to clash, the Sicilian Wars erupted. Greece began to make peace with the Roman Republic in 262 BC and the Romans sought to annex Sicily as its empire's first province. Rome intervened in the First Punic War, crushing Carthage so that by 242 BC Sicily had become the first Roman province outside of the Italian Peninsula. The Second Punic War, in which Archimedes was killed, saw Carthage trying to take Sicily from the Roman Empire. They failed and this time Rome was even more unrelenting in the annihilation of the invaders; during 210 BC the Roman consul M. Valerian, told the Roman Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily". Sicily served a level of high importance for the Romans as it acted as the empire's granary
Although today it is a region, it was once a fully fledged country of its own as the Kingdom of Sicily, ruled from Palermo; this also incorporated parts of Southern Italy for some time and Malta. It later became a part of the Two Sicilies under the Bourbons, which was actually centered in Naples rather than Sicily. Since that time the risorgimento has occurred and Sicily has been a fully fledged part of Italy.
Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 as part of the risorgimento. The conquest started at Marsala and was finally completed with the Siege of Geata where the final Bourbons were expelled and Garibaldi announced his dictatorship in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. An anti-Savoy revolt pushing for Sicilian independence erupted in 1866 at Palermo: this was quelled brutally by the Italians within just a week. The Sicilian (and the wider mezzogiorno) economy collapsed, leading to an unprecedented wave of emigration. Organisations of workers and peasants known as the Fasci Siciliani, who were leftist and separatist groups rose and caused the Italian government to impose martial law again in 1894.
The Mafia, a loose confederation of organised crime networks, grew in influence in the late 19th century; the Fascist regime began suppressing them in the 1920s with some success. There was an allied invasion of Sicily during World War II starting on July 10, 1943, the invasion of Sicily was one of the causes of the July 25 crisis; in general the Allied victors were warmly embraced by the Sicilian population. Italy became a Republic in 1946 and as part of the Constitution of Italy, Sicily was one of the five regions given special status as an autonomous region.
Sicilians
The position of Sicily as a stepping stone of sorts in the center of the Mediterranean Basin has lent it strategic importance throughout history, resulting in an endless procession of settlers and conquerors. Modern methods of genetic testing enable us to see which have had the greatest demographic impact. Several studies show strong ties between Sicily, mainland southern Italy and Greece, suggesting that the Siculi, Elymi and Greek colonizations were the most important.
It has been proposed that a genetic boundary divides Sicily into two regions, reflecting the distribution of Siculi and Greek settlements in the east, and Sicani/Elymi, Phoenician/Arab and Norman settlements in the west. However, other research has failed to detect any such division. No data exist on the contribution of Normans, but a number of studies hint that North African and Middle Eastern gene flow was limited by the physical barrier of the Mediterranean Sea and resulting cultural differentiation.
Sicily's population is approximately 5 million, and there are an additional 10 million people of Sicilian descent around the world, mostly in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Australia and the EU countries.
* Genetic History of the Population of Sicily by O. Rickards, et al.
* Peopling of Three Mediterranean Islands (Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily) Inferred by Y-Chromosome Biallelic Variability by P. Francalacci, et al.
* New Data on the Genetic Structure of the Population of Sicily: Analysis of the Alia Population (Palermo, Italy) by M. F. Ghiani, et al.
* Autosomal Microsatellite and mtDNA Genetic Analysis in Sicily (Italy) by V. Romano, et al.
* Genetic Analysis of a Sicilian Population Using 15 Short Tandem Repeats by C. M. Calo, et al.
* GM and KM Allotypes in Nine Population Samples of Sicily by H. Walter, et al.
* Population Structure in the Mediterranean Basin: A Y Chromosome Perspective by C. Capelli, et al.
* Human Y-Chromosome Variation in the Western Mediterranean Area: Implications for the Peopling of the Region by R. Scozzari, et al.
