Tomalin Barry. - Italy - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Copyright 2016 Kuperard

Revised and updated edition 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Culture Smart! is a registered trademark of Bravo Ltd.

ISBN 978 1 85733 830 0

This book is also available as an e-book: eISBN 978-1-85733-831-7

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

First published in Great Britain

by Kuperard, an imprint of Bravo Ltd

59 Hutton Grove, London N12 8DS

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8446 2440 Fax: +44 (0) 20 8446 2441

www.culturesmart.co.uk

Inquiries:

Series Editor Geoffrey Chesler

Design Bobby Birchall

Cover image: Tables and chairs at a bistro in Italy. Shutterstock.

Image on Shutterstock.

The following images have been reproduced under the licences:

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic: Michela Simoncini.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic: G. dallorto.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license: Piergiuliano Chesi.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International: Samuele Tocci.

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BARRY TOMALIN, M.A., is Senior Lecturer in International Communication and Cultural Awareness at the London Academy of Diplomacy, and Director of the Business Cultural Trainers Certificate course at International House, London. After graduating with a B.A. (Hons) in Anthropology and Linguistics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, he gained an M.A. in International Liaison and Communication at the University of Westminster. He has taught at Link University in Rome, and run training programs in Milan, Rome, Genoa, and Naples. He has traveled extensively in Italy and brings firsthand experience and professional insight to the country and its people.

The Culture Smart! series is continuing to expand.

For further information and latest titles visit

www.culturesmart.co.uk

The publishers would like to thank CultureSmart! Consulting for its help in researching and developing the concept for this series.

CultureSmart! Consulting creates tailor-made seminars and consultancy programs to meet a wide range of corporate, public-sector, and individual needs. Whether delivering courses on multicultural team building in the USA, preparing Chinese engineers for a posting in Europe, training call-center staff in India, or raising the awareness of police forces to the needs of diverse ethnic communities, it provides essential, practical, and powerful skills worldwide to an increasingly international workforce.

For details, visit www.culturesmartconsulting.com

CultureSmart! Consulting and CultureSmart! guides have both contributed to and featured regularly in the weekly travel program Fast Track on BBC World TV.

It is impossible to be bored in Italy. To excite, delight, and stimulate you there is the beauty of the land, the elegance and charm of its people, the variety of its regional cultures, the richness of its food and wine, the quality and dash of its design and engineering, the reputation of its artists, sculptors, writers, musicians, and filmmakers and, above all, the glory of its monuments and architecture. There is the sensuous pleasure of the Italian language, everyday as well as operatic; and the way Italians use diminutives and nicknames to create familiarity and intimacy with those around them. There is the whiff of intrigue and even scandal as well as tragedy in its history and politics, from the time of the ancient Romans, through the Renaissance right up to the present day.

Like all the Culture Smart! guides, this book focuses on the people. How do they behave, and what makes them tick? What is the best way to get on good terms with them? For that is the real way to enjoy Italy.

Above all other European nations, the Italians epitomize style. Fare bella figurato look good, to make the right impressionis a social imperative, not a fashionable option. Some people have commented dryly that Italy represents a triumph of style over substance. As this book shows, style is part of the substanceit helps explain the success of Italian design and fashion worldwide.

Like the other titles in this series, CultureSmart! Italy shows you as a foreigner how to get the best out of being in Italy and meeting and working with Italians. It tells you what you need to know about its history and culture and gives you a platform for further investigation of this fascinating country. It shows you how the Italians go about their daily lives, and highlights some of their passions and preoccupations. It introduces their festivals and traditions. It suggests how to have a good time in the Italian way, and gives tips on how to travel around. It offers a guide to communications, in particular to communicating successfully with Italians in a business situation.

Italian culture has been exported all over the world. What is it like at home? The Italians are the most European-minded of nations, emerging as they do from a long history of regional fragmentation, with some ancient battles still fought out on the football fields of Italy every week in season. This is your chance to get to know them better.