Italians from the Roman period to the Renaissance and present age have contributed a little something to modern civilization. Our form of republican government is deeply rooted in the Roman form of government. An Italian explorer named Columbus opened Europe to the New World. North and South America were named after Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian explorer. DaVinci, Michelangelo and Galileo represent just a few of the many post-Roman Italians that have contributed to the areas of art and invention. Aldus Manutius of Venice invented modern day cursive writing departing from old Roman capitals and Greek letterforms - into the twenty-six alphabet letters we know today, both for upper and lower-case letters. Enrico Fermi invented the neutron reactor. Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. Luigi Palmieri invented the mercury seismometer. Alessandro Volta’s voltaic pile was the first battery that produced a reliable, steady current of electricity. His name is where we derive the term volt. Nitroglycerin, a chemical explosive, was discovered by the Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero. The Italians can produce a fairly nice sports car, e.g.: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati & Zagato are pretty nice cars. Although the Italy is a small nation, it has produced some folks that have contributed to the advancement of civilization - even to this day.
World History was shaped by Romans and you're head is as soft as your nickname.
Really? Here's an exercise for you: Read Mario Gianluigi Puzo's "The Godfather". Then read Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus's (Suetonius) "Lives Of The Caesars". Are you sure?
You see, it was this way, Julius Caesar was a lib. He tried to set himself up as dictator for life so his own guys whacked him.
Markus Antonius left his pregnant wife and ran off to fight a big war with Caesar's nephew Octavius. Antonius wound up with a skanky Greek chick named Cleopatra (she was rich and his boys needed to be fed.) Octavius whacked him, she offed herself and Octavius became Augustus and ran things good for a lot of years.
When he passed away Tiberius, Augustus' step son and son in law (Roman families were close in those days) became emperor. He didn't screw things up but after a while he figured out he was never going to be "august" and went off to Capri with a bunch of eunuchs and drank and partied a lot.
When he died Augustus' grandson Gaius Caesar, who people called "Caligula" (which translates roughly to "Bootsie") behind his back, became emperor. Caligula was not a nice man and he had improper relations with his sisters. He was the kind of guy who saw conspiracies everywhere. He went a little nuts and the Senate and Praetorian Guards (read Secret Service) whacked him.
Caligula (fortunately?) did not leave an heir. They made his uncle Claudius emperor. Claudius talked with a lisp and walked with a limp but he was a good general and wasn't a psycho. He killed a lot of Britains. His problem was female. His wife got him to adopt he dumb kid Nero and name him a successor. Some time later Claudius died, some say of mushroom poisoning. You gotta watch those mushrooms.
Nero would have been happier as a stage performer in Vegas. As emperor he killed a lot of Jews, sucked up to the Parthians (Iranians), debased the currency, spent the empire broke and went off on lavish vacations to Greece, where he participated in a singing competition. The crowds loved him and he won. It's good to be emperor. The problem is, somebody had to pay for all this. Taxes went up and provinces revolted, the praetorian guard revolted and Nero ran for it. He didn't get far. He was cornered in his villa and ended up sticking himself in the throat with a dagger. There followed another civil war but this was it for the Caesar family.
The German and British historians who translated all of the Roman historians' works were trying to fit the history of the Roman empire into the context of European monarchy. It wasn't like that. It was very Italian.