I'm not proposing one particular POD, more like a different process of 'national awakening' in Italy.
Is it really inevitable for regions with such strong local identities as Veneto, Tuscany or Sicily to acquire an 'Italian' identity too? Or was this always the case? I can't really find much info on this subject, usually the existence of an 'Italian' identity is just treated as a given; which maybe was the case- but is it really that obvious it has to be this way?
I mean the traditional languages of many regions are not even mutually intelligible. How did Tuscan become accepted so easily as a prestige language? The usual explanation is the power of Renaissance Tuscany, Dante-Petrarca-Boccaccio etc. But it seems so weird to me. Why wouldn't Sicily or Venetia make an effort to standardize its own language? It's not like there is a France-style centralised state opressing diversity...
So what does it take for Italy to be "just a geographic expression'?