As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.
I have noticed that there are quite a few instances where a child is born to couples that are living together and at a later date they are married. Was this common it the 1800's? does it have anything to do with the laws regarding the church vs civil law?
Italians have a long and deep-rooted tradition of beliefs about luck and things that give either good or bad luck. In Italy there are colloquial names for bad luck. Think of:"sfiga" or "jella" (read it as "yella), but the most scary thing for millions of Italians is "Il Malocchio", which translate ...
