Nation's name: Repubblica Italiana (Italian Republic)
Capital: Rome
Language: Italian
Birthday: March 17th
National flower: Daisy
Human name: Feliciano Vargas
Height: 172cm (5'8")
Age: 20 (appearance)
Italy—or Veneziano, as most people call him—is basically the lovable disaster of the Hetalia cast. He's the grandson of the Roman Empire and spent his childhood with his grandfather before being handed off to Austria's place, where he ended up living alongside Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire. Nobody realized Italy was a boy at first since he wore dresses constantly; even Austria was clueless until Italy hit a growth spurt and his voice dropped.
His older brother is Romano (South Italy), and they've got complicated vibes. Italy clearly adores him, but Romano acts like admitting they're related is painful—though he definitely cares underneath all that grumpiness, especially when Italy hangs out with Germany instead. Italy also considers France and Spain his older brothers, calling them with the honorific "niichan" and "oniichan" respectively. Spain's been obsessed with getting Italy to move in since way back, and France, despite fighting him in WWII, still gives him terrible advice.
The core of Italy's character is his dependency on Germany. They met after WWI when Italy was technically Germany's prisoner, and somehow that turned into a lifelong best friendship and alliance. Germany's constantly trying to teach him basic stuff—tying shoes, handling grenades, actually following orders—and Italy just. doesn't absorb any of it. He spaces out, wanders off, and daydreams instead, which drives Germany up the wall, but they're inseparable anyway.
Personality-wise, Italy is the cheerful, kindhearted type who cries easily, gets offended, and is way too affectionate with physical contact—lots of hugging and kissing even when people don't ask for it. He's also a mess: absent-minded, irresponsible, prone to forgetting his pants after naps (which has gotten him shot at by Switzerland more than once), and he makes this weird "veh" sound constantly. He randomly yells "PASTA!" for no reason and bounces around like he's got endless energy.
The running joke is that Italy's useless and lazy—the whole series title is basically built on this. But creator Himaruya revealed the truth: Italy actually has serious strength. He allegedly beat the Ottoman Empire solo as a kid. He just doesn't use his power because he's too scared and cowardly to go for it.
Italy's hobbies are pretty harmless—art, drawing, singing, sleeping, flirting with girls, tinkering with German cars, cooking. He loves pasta, pizza, gelato, fruit, and cheese, basically what you'd expect. Despite all his quirks and flaws, most nations tolerate him fine. He's the series' main protagonist, so he's interacted with basically everyone.
Fun trivia: his iconic curl (ahoge) was literally added last-minute by Himaruya to make him cuter. The nickname "Ita-chan" came from Spain calling him that as a kid and it just stuck. And the series title "Hetalia" is a pun mixing "hetare" (useless in Japanese) with "Italia."
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
