"Italics." There are more than 250 million people around the world who belong to a community that began with Italy. Many of them don’t speak Italian, don’t live in Italy, and perhaps haven’t even been there. Despite this, they feel as if Italy is a part of their being. This “Italian” identity outside of Italy began thanks to emigration, but it has since developed into something more.
Piero Bassetti—a renowned entrepreneur, politician, and public intellectual—defines this feeling as “Italicity.” Bassetti presented his new book and manifesto, "Let’s Wake Up Italics!" at the Consulate General of Italy in New York.