A completely non- technical blog post, once in a while.
Yesterday, March 17th, was Italy's 150 birthday. For the event, the day was turned into a "extra" national holiday, as we generally celebrate April 25th (Freedom Day, that is the end of WWII, with the Allies entering Milan) and June 2nd, when Italy becoem a Republic. In fact, 150 years ago various small reigns previously under French, Spanish, and Austrian influence got together under a single King, who become King of Italy. Although Italy was first united under the Roman Empire, the notion of Italy as a country was never real for many centuries after the Roman Enpire fell. In fact also 150 years ago, Italy still didn't have Rome (still under the Pope) and Venice (still under Austria).
The two key events were a was against Austria, backed by the French in exchange of the lands of Savoy and Nice (previously under the Savoy Family, who become the Italian ruling family) and the "Thousands" expedition led by Garibaldi to free the South. I had a grand-grand-grand father participating.
Enough history, yesterday was a day off work, and we had also celebrations the night before, visited museums open until late night with the kids. There are Italian flags everywhere, and the had colored lights on most public buildings. This is not very common, as Italians generally remember their flags only when they win a Football Match. But given the continuous attacks to Italy, the flag, and anything national by the large Northern League party (part of the current coalition govenament), it seems people have reacted by increasing the effort to celebrate Italy.
Let me me join the celebration, wishing ourselves a great future within the European Union and wishing we could do much better to preserve for the world a unique (and probably the largest) amount of works of art, but also a passion for technology, food, fashion, lifestyle that make Italy unique.