Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University Federico II at Naples, author of texts translated in various languages and even editor of publishing works and contributor to some of the most prestigious national daily newspapers, Giuseppe Galasso specifically investigated the constant presence of multiethnic and multicultural aspects in Italy's evolution since ancient times.  
“Pre-Roman Italy was a mosaic of different people and civilisations, and this variety continued to exist also in the Latin civilisation, that would be inconceivable without the elements brought by Etruscans, Hellenes from Magna Graecia, Italic people such as the Umbrians, the Samnites and the Oscans. In the centuries that followed, polycentrism continued to be the most distinguishing feature of our history. Let's remember, for example, the importance of a by definition multicultural and multiethnic centre such as the Catholic Church throughout time: its curia, as far as this point of view is concerned, has always had really international characteristics. And again the court of the Normans and of Frederick II in southern Italy, the extraordinary situation of Venice between the East and the West, or once again cities like Florence or Milan where the cultural interplay was a common occurrence”.  

This was the scenario until 1861.  
“When our country really unified, its variegated nature continued strongly to be one of its major characteristics. Those who believe that Italy and our civilisation are a rather artificial and specious invention of those who participated in the Risorgimento and contributed to national unity, show that they do not understand anything of our own history. Italy as a civilisation and culture is much older than 1861".  

And what about today?  
“The traditional polycentrism is still alive. As far as the ethnic aspect is concerned, few other countries present a physical anthropology that, just like ours, is the result of millenary processes brought by the encounter, and often even by the fight, of different people. Neither Italian ethnic nor sub-ethnic groups ever existed. As far as the economic aspect is concerned, our most important city is not Rome but rather Milan. Finally, as for the cultural aspect, Florence, Naples, Venice, as well as Milan itself, not to mention Turin, and several other minor cities, are, in turn, as important as Rome and sometimes even more”.  

What about the linguistic aspect?  
“The dialectal varieties are very strong. We all continue to speak Ladino and we pronounce and articulate it grammatically in different ways, depending on whether we are Piedmontese, Sicilians, Sardinians or from Veneto and so on. Tuscan Italian is now the national language for exclusively cultural, not political, reasons, and thanks to the contribution of writers, thinkers, and scholars from every part of Italy”.  
“The cultural variety can be seen both in multiethnic societies and among the different levels of an ethnically homogeneous society. Confessional and non-confessional, aristocratic and popular, middle class and proletarian, urban and rural cultures, and sundry other distinctions are possible. In my opinion social differences come before ethnic ones; in other words, ethnic fear and prejudice often are but social fear and prejudice”.  
  
Do you think that the identity issue, so discussed in the world today, is a real or a false problem?  
“There is always a problem of identity and not just now. We can see that even in our individual biographies, or in our family life. The important thing is to believe that identity is not a natural and fixed scheme, but rather an historical reality that never stops evolving."  

Can we assume that an identity crisis also lies at the bottom of certain secessionist movements?  
“I think that should a referendum be held today concerning the secession of a part of Italy, the result would be a resounding victory of the Italian unity that is much healthier and rooted in strong, old and new elements, than the undeniable, serious and undelayable problems of various part of our country as well as a fool and still very dangerous demagogy might want us to believe”.