>>212768748Check the YouTube video by History Matter about the subject, it's pretty good. I'd embed it but I don't know how yo do it on phone.
Basically the shirt answer is that there was a concept of "italic people" during the Roman time, but it was lost as soon as the empire became more and more multicultural and with the germs invasions. Then the idea resurfaced again during Reinassance, mostly for the Norf (central Italy was Papal turf and the south was too busy being dumb, as usual)