Italy or Spain: Most culturally foreign to Europe

[FinalFlash]

cool story

You should be proud of your uniqueness. I don't see anything wrong with that.

@CV

Yes, Italians, especially southern Italians do have lots of overlap with us which also makes them special . Greeks too. They're more familiar to me than Iberians because you lot look strange to me. In a good way of course

[Tietar]

No guitars ?...

Europe missed a wonderful music

[renaissance12]

Following your theory, Italy is super foreign to Europe due they invented a lot of instruments (violin, viola, cello, octobass, double bass...) which were not popular in the rest of Europe

Don't forget this Venetian..Bartolomeo Cristofori




His "invention" The Piano-forte

It is not a desert ( less than n° 1 square km...) because the lack of rain..( yearly rain amounting to 600 mm ) but because the bad soil quality..
Does that matter?

A "desert" with 600-700 mm annual precipitation is not a desert.. is something else..

[renaissance12]

How much "italian" should be a country in order to get the european status ? above 50% ?

[StonyArabia]

Neither

[renaissance12]

Neither

Impossible... 80% of the European culture is "Italian"...

Italy was the center of Europe, in any aspect, since ancient Roman time to XVII century... 2.000 years..
Now Italy is not the leader anymore but many european countries learnt italian " cultural teachings"..

[Chocolate_Hound]

Spain hands down. Most of the country has been ruled by Moors for over half a millennia, while Italy has avoided foreign intrusion except in the far south.

[Xosé Guzmán]

They are both central in the formation of the modern European civilization, which is quite unlike most of Europe. It's just a fact.

Spain having a muslim past is an invalid argument because Al-Andalus was actually the main cultural center of Europe in most of the Middle Ages (apart from Italian city states & co).

This

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[HoboJim]

I would say Spain. Mostly by virtue of it's geographic position. It is considered "out of the way" in relation to the rest of the continent, and like it or not it is adjacent to North Africa. By virtue of this it's history and culture have developed distinctly from that of other European countries. Whereas Italy was the cornerstone of Europe for hundreds of years and received successive waves of other Europeans from every corner of the continent.

When you consider that Moorish occupation of Spain lasted 750 years and ended the same year Columbus set sail for the new world which dawned 500 years of Spanish cultural and linguistic exportation far outside the European continent it is easy to understand why someone would have trouble really associating Iberia with Europe. That isn't to say that it isn't or that the people of Spain are ethnically distinct from the rest of Europe but a case can certainly be made for the association of Spain with places outside of Europe.

[Cristiano viejo]

I would say Spain. Mostly by virtue of it's geographic position. It is considered "out of the way" in relation to the rest of the continent, and like it or not it is adjacent to North Africa. By virtue of this it's history and culture have developed distinctly from that of other European countries.

So due the geographical position Iceland, UK, Scandinavia, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Greece and why not also Italy should be considered out of the way. Interesting...

Whereas Italy was the cornerstone of Europe for hundreds of years and received successive waves of other Europeans from every corner of the continent.

Educate yourself because the same could be said about Spain.

When you consider that Moorish occupation of Spain lasted 750 years and ended the same year Columbus set sail for the new world which dawned 500 years of Spanish cultural and linguistic exportation far outside the European continent it is easy to understand why someone would have trouble really associating Iberia with Europe. That isn't to say that it isn't or that the people of Spain are ethnically distinct from the rest of Europe but a case can certainly be made for the association of Spain with places outside of Europe.

Moorish occupation did not last 750 years. In fact it did not affect to most of the country. I wonder where people learn such things...

And again the same could be said about Italy since that country has been occupied for centuries by French, Spaniards, Arabs, Austrians, etc.