BOLZANO, Italy - This picturesque town in the foothills of the Tyrolean Alps became Italian by a twist of history, when Italy and Austria made a pact after the upheaval of World War I. With its German-speaking majority and reticent elegance, it still feels closer to Vienna than to Rome.

So it came as little surprise when the president of the autonomous province of Bolzano said he would not join in the nationwide festivities planned this month celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

"We were taken away from Austria against our will," Luis Durnwalder, the president, said in an interview in nearby Trento. "I respect those people who want to celebrate, but I see no reason to celebrate."

But Mr. Durnwalder, who helped Bolzano negotiate its autonomy from Rome and its hefty state subsidies, is not the only skeptic. Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, the most powerful party in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition, called the celebrations "useless, and a bit rhetorical," and some of his party members have refused to stand for the national anthem.

Beyond the political theater, the polemics reflect a profound reality: as Italy celebrates its 150th anniversary it is more fractured than ever before - politically, geographically and economically. The country has always been more a patchwork of regions with strong local identities rather than a strong nation-state. And the celebrations have only highlighted the seams.

Even today most Italians consider themselves the product of their hometowns or regions more than their nation.

John Foot, a professor of Italian history at University College, London, points to a growing rejection, among a minority of Italians, of "the present nation-state, the way it's been organized."

"I think that rejection could become more and more radical if radical forms of federalism are pushed through," Mr. Foot said. "There would be an institutional crisis - not a civil war, but a Belgium situation where it's impossible to form a government, where regions become so strong and are mini-countries. In some ways, that's already happened."

But others see these kinds of divisions as so intrinsic to the Italian project - a big, unruly family, bound by language and largely by religion, forever bickering but never quite dissolving - that they pose no threat.

"What's happening to Belgium won't ever happen to Italy," said Giuliano Amato, a former prime minister who is the anniversary committee chairman.

"We need to stay together in order to keep arguing," he added wryly. "If not, how can we keep arguing?"

150 years after Garibaldi, a country as fractured as ever.

The New York Times