There is no Italian Race. Many bloods are intermingled in the population crowded between the ridge of the Alps and the shore of the African sea. Even the geographical concept of Italy is fairly recent. There is an Italian nation; that is, a community with a common literary language and a common system of psychological attitudes and spiritual beliefs. For the rest, this is the only valid definition of a nation: a human group kept together by the ties of a common education, and large enough to develop a common will.
SOURCE
Vail-Ballou Press (1939) pg 1-507