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Center for International Studies
Member, Texas Tech University System The Princeton Review - 373 Best Colleges, 2011 Edition
Il Colosseo, Roma, Italia / The Colosseum, Rome, Italy.

Italy

Italian Society and Culture

Many aspects of the Italian culture are deeply rooted from ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, most noticeably in the legal system and art throughout Italy. Today, the Italian lifestyle is a mixture of relaxing over a delicious meal, celebrating an epic game of calico (soccer), and socializing with friends and family. Throw in a passion for music and the need for fashion to display pride and personal expression, and you have the perfect recipe for life in Italy.

Etiquette and Customs

Meeting Etiquette  

  • Shake hands with everyone (men, women and children) upon arrival and departure of a social meeting.
  • Friends may greet each other with a kiss on each cheek.
  • Last names and appropriate titles should be used unless invited by your French host or friends to use their first names. Only close friends and family use first names.
  • Always maintain eye contact while talking.
  • To get your waiter or waitress to take notice raise your index finger and make eye contact.

Gift-Giving Etiquette  

  • Give a generous gift because Italians are very generous gift givers.
  • Wrap the gifts beautifully.
  • Gifts will be opened in front of you.
  • If invited to someone home, always bring a small gift.
  • Send flowers or a gift to the host the day of or day after a party.
  • Give chocolates, flowers with an uneven number, and pastries.
  • Do not give knives, scissors, chrysanthemums, or red roses.
  • Do not wrap gifts in gold and black ribbons.

Dining Etiquette

  • If you invite then you pay for the meal.
  • Drinking without eating is very rare. Hard drinking is not appreciated. Intoxication is considered ill-mannered. Women drink little in Italy.
  • Break bread and place it next to your plate on the table.
  • Ask for your check when finished eating.
  • Don't roll pasta on your spoon. Roll it with your fork on the side of your plate.
  • Keep both hands above the table during dinner.
  • use your knife to pick up cheese to put on your bread or crackers.
  • Eat fruit with a knife and fork.
  • Burping is considered extremely vulgar
  • When finished eating, place knife and fork (tines up) side by side on the plate at the 5:25 position. The fork should be on the left and the knife should be on the right with the blade of the knife facing the fork.

Quick Facts

Climate: Predominantly Mediterranean, but Alpine in the far north and hot and dry in the south.

Population: 60,681,514 (April 2011 estimate)

Ethnic Make-up: Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French- and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians and Greek-Italians in the south)

Religions: Predominately Roman Catholic with mature Protestant and Jewish communities and a growing Muslim immigrant community

Government: Republic

Languages: Italian is the official language of Italy, and 93 percent of the population are native Italian speakers. About 50 percent of the population speaks a regional dialect. Many dialects are mutually unintelligible and considered by linguists as separate languages, but they are not officially recognized. Friulian, one of these dialects, is spoken by 600,000 people in the northeast Italy, which is 1 percent of the entire population. Other northern minority languages include Ladin, Slovene, German (which enjoys equal recognition with Italian in the province of Alto-Adige) and French, which is legally recognized in the Alpine region of the Val d'Aosta. Albanian is spoken by 0.2 percent of the population, mainly in the southern part of Italy, as too are Croatian and Greek. Catalan is spoken in one city, Alghero, on the island of Sardinia, by about 0.07 percent of the population. On the rest of the island, Sardinian is spoken by more than 1 million, which comes to 1.7 percent of the Italian population.