To try to be even more brief:

1. No, the dialect I'm talking about is officially called Piedmontese in modern parlance. It was the mother tongue of the House of Savoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese. In the Val d'Aosta they speak Valdotain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vald%C3%B4tain_dialect. Either way you slice it, though, the language is radically different from standard Tuscan Italian.

2. Yes, Italian fleets in the Renaissance period were very good.

3. In World War I, the army went into the war hideously unprepared. I guess, on further reflection, the Austrians, the French, the Russians and even the British went into the war as unprepared, so maybe by comparison the Italians didn't look as incompetent because everyone else seemed to be. However, they had horrible losses - about 3.5% of their population, which given how short the front was is pretty impressive (in a bad way).

4. Yes, Mussolini will always be tainted by association with Hitler.

5. I weep for France.

6. The Latin gerund doesn't have a plural form.

7. I still think the Far Right was not responsible for much of anything in terms of the terror that hit Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.

8. I still disagree with the Economist and think that Berlusconi is better than the alternative.

9. I tend to think Fini is an economic leftist from what I can see.

Anyway, thank you for the insightful responses - if I had more time I might defend Il Cavaliere a bit more, but alas - work calls.