Italy is the home of a number of archives, including Roman Catholic Church archives, that are useful to genealogists. However, knowing the desire for genealogy oriented documents, the country has established a resource just for genealogy.
As you may know, Italians coming into the United States would often say they were Calabrese, or Sicilian, rather than Italian. Risorgimento is the word for the Unification which happened about 1861 but ethnic self identity continued in this way.
ANTENATI CULTURA GOV (ITALY GENEALOGY)
This archive has records before the Unification of Italy.
Excerpt on holdings:
The State Archives hold many private and public sources that are essential to the genealogical research and the History of some families and persons. The main sources are: The Civil Registry together with the attached 1 year and 10 year origin indexes. Enlistment and military career documentation (e.g Conscription Lists and Military Records) Notary public archives, family and personal archives....
As always, explore the site and don't hesitate to contact an archivist!
