While every country has a rich and fascinating history and culture if you look hard enough, Italy must have a pretty good claim to having one of the most compelling and influential cultures in the world.
From a hugely influential empire whose treasures are still being unearthed to this day, to centuries of architecture that have stood the test of time and been imitated the world over.
And from waves of great art and music to arguably the most beloved cuisine in the world, Italian culture has touched people all over the world – and is thankfully fiercely protected in its homeland!
Here’s a quick understanding of the most important things you need to know to understand Italian culture, the Italians, their food, their heritage, and their pride in being Italian!
Table of Contents
History and Art
For many people in Europe and the New World, the beginning of the Roman Empire is the beginning of civilization.
This empire incorporated many gods from Greek mythology and many Latin historians provide us with key information about other surrounding ancient civilizations, before Rome turned Christian – and changed the course of Europe.
Suddenly the Roman Empire became not just a vessel for a million offshoots of Latin – some of which would blend and congeal and unite to form major languages of their own.
It also became they key to a Middle Eastern religion spreading far and wide, and providing the Catholic Church with its eternal headquarters.
So much about what makes the Roman Empire amazing is about durability – the texts that survive, the bridges and monuments that have withstood everything that two millennia have been able to throw at them.
And of course jaw-dropping sites like Pompeii, where gorgeous frescoes are still being discovered to this day, take that sense of long-lasting history to a new level.
The Roman Empire is so bound with our concept of power and glory that even today the most power people in many countries are called “senators” who gather together in neo-classical Roman buildings and in many cases the laws that bind countries have much to owe to Rome too.
When that empire fell, it meant a fracturing not just of the Empire but also of Italy itself, as various foreign invaders – pretenders to Rome’s imperial throne – tried their luck in reclaiming that elusive glory.
In those many intervening centuries before Italian unification, Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples and Genoa grew into powerful city-states, often in direct competition with each other, but it was out of this conflict that such a dynamic and vibrant culture was created.
This arguably reached its zenith with the Renaissance, when an amazing number of artists emerged from various regions of Italy to have a huge influence on art.
While many of the best galleries around the world rely on an international selection of works for their world-class reputations, an Italian gallery can blow visitors away just by featuring works from its local superstars, such is the embarrassment of riches to be found.
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Rafael are names that even the most casual art fan will recognize and at times the sheer wealth of their works, where Michelangelo was allowed to run riot in the Vatican City or Leonardo da Vinci’s patrons enabled him to leave masterpieces in every corner of the county.
Literature and Music
Of course, Italy’s impact on the art world is not restricted to painting. Writing from the Roman Empire comes in all forms.
Poets such as Virgil, who perhaps created the template for the dying poet asking for his work to be destroyed – Ovid, a narrative poet whose work Metamorphoses informs a lot of our understanding of Roman myths, and Virgil, whose “Anaeid” tells the story of Aeneas, the great ancestor of all Romans.
In the world of politics, we have Cicero, a masterful orator who thankfully jotted down some of his thoughts for posterity, and Horace, whose work “Satires” helped that word to endure to this day.
During the Renaissance, Petrarch was a scholar, poet, and humanist, while Dante gave the world the Divine Comedy, complete with its unforgettable descriptions of heaven and hell.
However, for many visitors and natives alike, perhaps it is the world of music where Italians have most left their quintessential mark on the arts.
Opera is, for many aficionados, only to be sung in Italian, and the Coliseums that Italy built to this artform, such as La Scala Opera House in Milan, have been imitated all around the world.
You might not know a soprano from a baritone, but you are sure to have heard of the likes of Giuseppe Verdi, Puccini, and Bellini.
Food and Drink
Shakespeare had the Duke of Orsino say: “If music be the food of love, play on,” and in perhaps no other country in the world can you indulge in the two pleasures!
The Roman Empire helped to facilitate exports from the south of the continent and the Middle East to the rest of Europe, and so in many ways, Italian cuisine has been influencing the rest of us for thousands of years.
Olive oil has long been a sacred liquid for many neighboring countries, and Italy is still seen as exemplary in its prioritizing of the best ingredients.
The millions of Italians who emigrated in the twentieth century meant that some of this culinary culture reached both the New World as well as some more gastronomically-challenged countries in the Old World, but a testament to Italy’s magic is that experts still believe you have to go to the mother country for the good stuff.
What is perhaps most exciting for a visitor is that Italy is a truly regional country, meaning a Margherita in Milan, a risotto in Rome or a tiramisu in Turin might not be what the locals order – because they are other regions’ specialties.
While we can revel in reliably high standards of the major staples anywhere we go, it’s always a great idea to find out what each region is best known for.
Italian wine is also a force to be reckoned with, the world’s second-biggest exporter behind France.
While Barolo – the “King of Wines” – from outside Genoa is one of the country’s most renowned varieties, along with Tuscany’s Chianti, Italian wine, like its food, has a splendid regional variety.
Added to this, I would argue that there is something notably open about Italian’s cultivation of wine, meaning that there is also a rich tradition of dessert wines like Moscato and sparkling wines like Prosecco and Lambrusco.
Like a meal, it would be mad to end this section without coffee! Italian cafes are not just famous for the quality of their roasts but for all of the related culture that goes with it.
In every corner of the globe, coffee lovers are brewing up Lavazza in Bialetti coffee pots, or wondering whether to ask the barista for a cappuccino or a caffè latte.
A wonderfully simple part of any Italian holiday is watching patrons order an espresso and drink it standing up at the bar (and in some regions paying for a caffè sospeso, a coffee for anyone who can’t afford one himself) or sitting beside an effortlessly elegant local while taking in some Mediterranean sun on the terrace.
The Italian Spirit
Which brings us to our final section: the culture that lives in the people that populate this wonderful country. Can you think of another country in the world with such universally loved people?
Whether that concept is based on reality or stereotypes is up for debate, but you will have a hard time finding many people with a bad word to say about Italians and a great number who envy their lifestyle.
“La dolce vita” is the phrase that encapsulates Italian life, and perhaps – at least in our imagination – it is about valuing the important things.
The pleasure of food and drink outlined above, the delight of wandering through your picturesque town, and – above all – the reverence attached to the importance of families being together and eating together.
I have occasionally been bemused at just how strict some Italians can be about food!
I have had Italians tell me that drinking a latte after late morning just isn’t the done thing, or that if a Margherita contains anything except tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil it ain’t a Margherita!
I once helped myself to some cheese while making lunch with an Italian friend and she sternly asked “Oh, so you’ve started already?” – the first bite was to be taken at the table together.
Another indelible memory I have is of a Sardinian friend’s mother preparing a home-cooked meal with approximately 250 courses, which finished with her sons insisting her lovingly prepared tiramisu had been chilled for too long and so was not the requisite “semifreddo” temperature.
But while these standards can seem bizarrely strict, they speak of that other key Italian cultural ingredient: passion.
It infuses everything they do and no visitor – whether their interests lie more in history or art or gastronomy – can fail to be captivated by it.
