There are projects that are born from a passion. And passion, when it is authentic, does not need to permits nor of sponsorships to get going.
italiani.it has been telling the story of Italy for over thirty years. Even before social networks existed, before the web became the public square, this domain—one of the longest-running in the history of the Italian internet—had already chosen its mission: to keep Italian identity alive around the world, to connect those who remain with those who have left, to give voice to an Italy often overlooked by the mainstream media.
Italy as told by its inhabitants
Over the years, italiani.it has built something special: a network of websites dedicated to Italian municipalities—from conflenti.italiani.it onward, to dozens of others—created not with public funding or institutional support, but thanks to the spontaneous generosity of ordinary people: citizens, emigrants, local history enthusiasts, and custodians of local memories.
They were the true authors. They wrote about traditions, patronal festivals, ancient recipes, landscapes, and forgotten stories. They described their town with the depth that only those who grew up there—or who carry it in their hearts from afar—can convey. We at the Foundation provided the platform; they provided the voice.
This work has been done without any help from local governments, neither municipal nor regional. Not out of distrust, but by choice: italiani.it wants to be and remain absolutely alien to any political alignmentA guarantee of third-party service that we consider an essential value, today more than ever.
What's new: institutions join the project
Il Municipalities Project It marks a turning point. Not an ideological shift—the values remain the same—but a new opening: for the first time, we're involving local governments as active partners in promoting their communities.
The idea is simple in its ambition: to make the power of italiani.it available to municipalities—its history, its community, its ability to reach Italians around the world—to tell the story and promote each individual municipality in an innovative, authentic, and participatory way.
Participating administrations aren't buying visibility. They're participating in a cultural project.
Three months of dialogue: a wonderful surprise
When, about three months ago, we began knocking on the doors of the first administrations, we were honest with ourselves: we didn't know what to expect. We had worked for years without institutions, and part of us wondered whether the institutions were ready—or interested—in thinking differently.
We were pleasantly proven wrong.
We started from Conflenti, the Calabrian municipality where the Italiani.it Foundation is based. It was natural to start from home. From there, the dialogue expanded to other municipalities in Calabria, and then to Sicily, until it involved the GAL of the Aeolian Islands, which has approved a memorandum of understanding with the Foundation.
What we found, along this journey, was a willingness we hadn't expected in these often challenging times: open-minded, curious mayors, capable of seeing something genuinely new in the Municipalities Project. Not the usual conference, not the usual brochure. A living, digital project, aimed at the Italian community around the world.
A special thanks to the Mayor of Scigliano
Among the many people we have met in these months, we would like to thank in particular the Mayor of Scigliano, who didn't just join the project: he made it his own, shared it with his colleagues, and enthusiastically promoted it among other mayors in the area. Thanks to him, the Municipalities Project found fertile ground even in municipalities we wouldn't have reached so soon.
It's the most beautiful mechanism that can be triggered: that of word of mouth between people who believe in something.
The meaning of all this
We tell this story not to celebrate ourselves, but because we believe it has an important symbolic value.
In an Italy where dialogue between institutions and civil society is often difficult, where bureaucracy weighs down and mistrust is widespread, we found mayors who look ahead. They want their municipalities not just to invest in concrete, but also to gain visibility, identity, and a connection with their emigrants and the world.
This gives us energy. And it confirms that the Municipalities Project makes sense—not just on paper, but in the concrete reality of those territories.
We will move forward, town by town, with the same passion as always. And with something more: the knowledge that, when you knock with respect and a good idea, doors open.
