In the conventional sense, no, there aren't. However, modern Italian is Tuscan in a way that modern French is not Parisian - there are a lot more regional dialects that are still spoken. For example, the Savoy "dialect" is really almost a separate language, and it's hard to understand Sicilian. Imagine if each major region of France had a spoken dialect as distinct as Occitan.

I have to say that Montanelli, like almost everyone else, really does see Venice as something separate - he mentions it when he writes about Italy, but it was independent for so long, and saw itself as separate from the rest of Italy in such a forceful sense, that its military history in some of its colonial exploits was left out of the analysis. However, it too had to resort to condottiere armies because it didn't have enough people to wage war in Italy proper, and its military record on land (as opposed to on the sea) was actually not stellar by any means, just not as uniformly embarrassing as that of the rest of Italy. After the fall of Venice's overseas empire, its traditions were also destroyed. As for Genoa, it really is more bravado than competence.

I would say he wasn't as bad as a lot of overly powerful presidents who might as well be considered dictators. He was also certainly easily as competent as Hollande in France is now, if not more so.

Wait just a minute. Bologna was pinned on the right almost immediately after it happened, but it has never been conclusively proven. In those years, almost everything was blamed on the right, despite the fact that they never constituted a large or powerful movement. In fact, a lot of Red Brigades actions were blamed on the right, even after the Red Brigades openly took responsibility. The Mitrokhin files point to international terrorism and Carlos the Jackal and I have no reason to doubt them; they were the most comprehensive and wide-ranging disclosure of KGB files and they have been accepted by most respectable specialists in the field.

Whatever the story is on Gladio in other countries, in Italy it seems that it has just added to the general atmosphere of mutual blame that the left and the right level at one another. Essentially, each person will choose who to believe based on what seems most plausible. I think that the Left's interpretation of Gladio in Italy is highly unlikely and absurd.

As for Berlusconi, we will have to agree to disagree. I don't see him as the problem in Italy. I see a massive state bureaucracy (by some counts the largest per capita in Europe, at 6-7% of the total workforce), unsustainable social programs that rival those of France, and organized crime as Italy's problems. Berlusconi, to his credit, tried to cut the bureaucracy and the social programs. I don't care if he has sex with almost every woman he finds attractive, and I don't care if one of them was slightly underage. I also don't care if he pays his taxes in a nation that has some of the highest taxes in all of Europe and one of the highest rates of tax evasion, because he's just doing what everyone else is. If he is fighting to cut the power and size of Italy's government, he is doing a good thing. Europe needs a real Right, because it hasn't had one for too long and it's bankrupting Europe in a hurry.

Yes, there are allegations of corruption, but those sorts of allegations have been made about almost everyone in Italian politics, so I don't see how Berlusconi is any different.