1. Personal Context

I have no known ancestral European stock from south of the English Channel. My interest in Italy is more a matter of borrowing good ideas wherever they may be found.

With global warming, my soggy/mossy Pacific Northwest climate is becoming Mediterranean. So I look to Italy for clues about dry climate sustainable lifestyles.
We like garlic, rustic breads, simple "locavore" cooking, vegetables, and seafood -- all pointing to Italy
Italian voice music seems the best humored and liveliest -- Italian's Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) and Barber of Seville (Rossini) are more fun than German's Ring Cycle (Wagner) or WinterReisse (Schubert).

2. Introduction

As usual, "Lonely Planet" series has a good text: "Italy" (hardy2012)

3. History and Culture

General histories of Europe provide a good baseline. Gilmour's "The Pursuit of Italy" (gilmour2011) is a readable treatment of Italy per se. Barzini's "The Italians" (barzini1996) is also readable and more culturally oriented.

Italian history is a mix of:

Greek and Etruscan culture
Roman republic, empire, and collapse
Roman Catholic power during middle ages
Cultural/mercantile power when spices came across from Arabia to Venice. Thus funding the Renaissance: Each newly rich patron of the arts cutting "la bella figura" in clothing, palaces, statuary, musical compositions, et al.
Lost influence when other spice routes were established, yet continued obsession with la bella figura (best-in-the-world), but using readily-available resources.
1. Perfumes (flowers)
2. Clothing design (fabrics)
3. Music (voices and whatever instruments can be found)
4. Theater (opera, film industry),
5. Food (things that grow just about anywhere -- onions, garlic, tomatoes, eggplant, wheat or cornmeal, a few hardy weeds rebranded as spices, plus pigs and seafood)
6. Conversation (whether it is international diplomacy, or side-walk cafe banter, or a lover's line of persuasion), where the participants make a serious effort to understand and work with the needs/interests/triggers of the other party.
I think of this being the European equivalent of Black American culture -- jazz, hip-hop, gospel, southern cooking, doo-rags, pimped-out clothes and cars. Take a monetarily poor but lively family-oriented subculture, add a desperate need to be seen as as-good-as or better-than the surrounding culture, and simmer in neglected areas until it explodes as a fully formed opinion leader in art/music/food/sex.
National (but not cultural) unification in 1800's
Modern industrial strength in the north (where the "barbarians" settled), farming strength in the middle, and rural subsistence in the south (where desertification is well under way).
Losing side of many wars, including both world wars in 1900's, leading to desperate conditions.
A wry pride in still making a beautiful life from those conditions, working with the basics (family, food, art/music, love).
Recognition in the rest of the world that somehow the Italians are onto something in their simple/beautiful approach, leading to centuries of tourists from monetarily richer but culturally poorer areas.
Leading to a tourist industry that makes Italy a fantasy land with Italians as the exhibits.
In addition to a tourist destination, it is a real nation, with a lot of regional cultures, held together with family ties. It still must grow food, supply water, remove trash and sewage, and deal with modern pressures.

4. Language

My impression is that Italian is basically Latin that has slid to the front of the mouth to support a LOT of rapid talking. It has of course been influenced by invading armies and their languages, and by tourists -- so English and German provide loan words. In keeping with the "Italy is a bunch of cultural regions", local dialects can be mutually unintelligible. Efforts to standardize (e.g., on the dialect of Florence) are seen as cultural war by others.

Further, italian is written phonetically, capturing the various slurs and shortcuts of a rapid-speaking culture. To an english speaker, the written form makes no sense until you read aloud -- then the many cognates found in english (inherited from latin conquests) become clearer.

Start with "Teach Yourself Italian" (vellaccio2003). Then a couple of dual language collections of short stories. hall1961 starts with Boccaccio and provides historical context through the centuries. roberts1999 is more modern -- easier dialects but sometimes weird stories.

Then work through a serious piece of literature. I chose Umberto Eco's "Il Nome Della Rosa" (eco1980). This is heavy going in any language, so I needed a translation (eco1994) to keep me on track. Read a paragraph in italian (using a dictionary for new words), read it in english to clarify the meaning, go back and reread it in italian to see that meaning in the italian prose. As usual read aloud to get ear and mouth familiar with language.

By about page 200 I was moving more comfortably, but the theological esoterica remained a struggle on first reading.