Our research on the concept of "italicity" was launched after many years of interviews and debates Piero Bassetti and I had on the occasion of the annual meetings of the  Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad with   many representatives of the Italian business community. This was a large community  made up not only of Italians scattered over all the continents and of people of Italian descent, now totally integrated in the societies they have chosen to live in, but also of "foreigners" with no ties whatsoever with the Italian peninsula, yet who for some reason feel attracted by the Italian way of being. It is a large  community of individuals which, although being  separated  by their past experiences and by their present political loyalties, nevertheless  finds a mysterious common meeting ground in a shared feeling towards many old and new cultural aspects of the Italian life style.

The primary purpose of our research has  been so far  to understand this mystery and, in its wake, to find out whether this  vast area of good will could become a positive force  in promoting a better international understanding, in a world which every day  is becoming  increasingly  both global and local. Each culture has both bright and dark sides, including the Italian culture. Therefore, we came to explore the concept  of "italicity"  in a spirit of humility. No culture can pretend to have alone the right answers to the daunting challenges of our times. The peace of the world can be preserved only trough the collaboration, not the clash, of civilizations.

The multidisciplinary method we have pursued in this volume as well in the previous one (The Italian Culture and the Challenge of a Global Era) has taken us through three connecting rings, although in a rather casual way. The first ring includes the Italians living in the peninsula, whose old century regional and national traditions had been in the past heavily   influenced by foreign cultures but  which now  in some way  find it difficult to  accept  or  absorb diversity.

The second ring has to do with the Italian diaspora. They are the descendants of those million of people, most from the southern regions, who left Italy looking for a better life in the many diverse areas of the world. Free of nationalism, they still experience the internal conflict of coordinating their ancestral regional Italian traditions with full participation in the cultural mainstream of the societies where they live in.

The third and last ring includes the "italics", the  de-territorialized group of " non-Italians" who do not identify themselves with the Italian national values but  nevertheless have made Italian cultural and  artistic heritage part of their own personal history  and often share some  aspects of the daily modern Italian life style.

A close relation tightly binds these three rings which interact in a permanent cumulative relationship of cause and effects. Any changing which take place inside any one has consequences on the other two. The events of  the peninsula have their fallout-negative or positive—on the way  the Italian diaspora  tries to live its heritage. In the same way, the quality of the contribution the Diaspora makes to the daily life of the countries where it has  chosen to live may affect—for the good or evil—the "italic" perception of the "italianita¹".

Our research has not yet reached the end of the road.  But we have accumulated enough elements to believe that it is worth pursuing. This we shall try to do in the near future.