If one thinks of Italian regions from the outside, it is easy to get the impression that certain features of the landscape are essential parts of local identity: the mountains of Piemonte, the canals of Venezia, and the rioni of Napoli, those densely populated urban corridors that abound with life, foe example.

The UNESCO World Heritage Program, of which Italy is the perennial global leader, justifiably celebrates this intimate connection between landscape and identity. When one visits or lives in one of these places for a while, however, other less tangible features of a place emerge as equal if not more important aspects of local identity, food, or even more effervescently, language, especially dialect.