Best set of inventors by far: The following inventions among many others can be credited to Italians: construction: paved roads, arched bridges, aqueducts; Art and music: piano, harpsichord, violin, viola, cello, bass, opera; Science and technology: electric battery (Volta), telephone (Meucci), radio (Marconi), microprocessor (Faggin), moveable type (Castaldi), loudspeaker (Marzi), AC motor (Ferraris), sound on film (Rappazzo), thermometer (Santorio), barometer (Torricelli), compass (Gioja), seismograph (Cecchi), telescope (Galileo), nuclear reactor (Fermi), internal combustion engine (Matteucci, Barsanti), petrol engine (Bernardi), steam turbine (Branca), jet engine (Campini), carburetor (DeCristoforis), hydraulic motor (Ramelli), helicopter (Forlanini), seaplane (Calderara), motor scooter (D'Ascanio), eyeglasses (Spina, D'Armate), torpedo (Luppis), revolver (Broccu); Food: espresso, capucinno, pasta (not invented in China), pizza.
They had the best set of explorers: Marco Polo, Cristoforo Colombo, Amerigo Vespucci, Giovanni Caboto, Verrazzano
Best artists and sculptors: Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Ghiberti, Bernini, Donatello, Rafael, many others
Composers: Monteverdi, Cavalli, Vivaldi, Verdi, Paganini, many others
Scientists and mathematicians: Fibonacci, Galilei, Lagrange, Ricci-Curbastro, Fermi, Majorana, Avogrado, Natta, Golgi, Malpighi, many others
Writers, historians and philosophers: Ovid, Livy, Lucretius, Virgil, Cicero, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Marcus Aurelius, Dante, Thomas Aquinas, many others
Pretty much all of the so-called 'finest' physical things in life are made by Italians: the finest paintings, finest sculpture, finest foods, finest clothes, finest cars (Lamborghini, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Pagani), finest construction and building materials. No other nation comes close to matching Italians for craftsmanship.
How can any other country even compete?
