Is Italy a Failing State?

Given its economic situation, an interesting question posed in The End of Italy - By David Gilmour at Foreign Policy

The government's political and economic failures are not the only cause of the malaise that now threatens Italy's survival. Some flaws in the national structure were inherent in the circumstances of the country's creation. The Northern League -- Italy's third-largest political party, which suggested that the country's 150th birthday in March should be cause for mourning rather than celebration -- is not simply a bizarre aberration. Its attitude to the south, xenophobic and even racist as it sometimes is, demonstrates the truth that Italy has never felt itself to be a properly united country.

Worth a read, especially if you haven't thought about what a recent (relatively) construct Italy is.

What might happen if Italy falls apart? Revival of Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy, Venice and the kingdom of Naples?

Or might this current crisis cause the country, despite, Mr. Gilmour's words, to pull together or attempt to do so? Do the regions all hang together or wither separately? Go full Balkan or cobble together alliances?