As a teenager, I soon had to come to terms with a rough truth: Italy is seldom first. It's highly unusual to see the name of my country connected to profitable companies, technological breakthroughs, or at least pop culture mainstays. The grandeur of the Roman Empire and Renaissance city-states is long gone and even the Italian economic miracle of the 60s, an industrial and social revolution that gave Italy a respectable seat in the G8, is now a distant memory. I can barely believe that just 30
