In the words of many contemporaries, the political unification of Italy was not seen as the ultimate result of the formation of a national identity, but rather as a pre-condition; this was certainly the view of Massimo D'Azeglio - the man behind the notorious summary of the Italian unification: "we have made Italy, now we have to make Italians".

The conscience of political and cultural unity could not realistically anticipate the experience of political unity: how could men who were set apart by geographical borders, by tolls still claimed in a few regions for the surviving local customs inherited by some nobleman, men who rarely communicated with those of the nearby village, families who met only to exercise their skills with the knife... The picture of Italy that appeared to the eyes of a member of the Italian establishment was rather dire. One could wonder if a Neapolitan shop owner would feel anything in common with a Neapolitan land worker - if a Roman citizen would share any common sentiment with one of the day laborers carted over the Appennini from the neighboring regions to spend months in the malaria ridden lands, out in the open, until the cart came back to return them to their families. Italy is still full of regional slurs - that share the same take on poverty, misery, ignorance; the same disdain of men uncouth, filthy, despicable - burini, terroni, fitusi. They are all more or less a worse version of redneck; and they show that Italy was divided but also that a Sicilian land owner might have felt more in common with a Venetian one, than he did with the dirty poor people who inhabited his lands.

And yet, such a dire picture was not cause of despair. Our Massimo D'Azeglio was a curious example of Italian - son of a Marquis, Cesare, from an old family of the Piedmontese military aristocracy. His father had been a ministry for the King of Piedmont during the years of the French revolution, serving in the ranks of the public administration (with its dialect of course - even Victor Emmanuel III in the 1940s still spoke privately in dialect; a familiar thing). A loyalist, he had escaped with his familiy during the occupation, wandered through Florence and Rome, served as an ambassador to the Pope. Then Massimo had begun his military career in the cavalry cadets, together with the veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns - but more inclined towards the arts he had then moved to Rome, to study painting dal vivo (that is learing how to paint scenaries from live observation) and often wandered the countriside, taking residence with local families. He had then moved to Milan, under the Austrian rule, after a parenthesis back in Piedmont where the new King Carlo Felice had begun an absolute restoration.

There D'Azeglio wrote a well received national-popular historical novel - Ettore Fieramosca on the matter of the "Challenge of Barletta" - in Italian of course; and returned then to Rome to try and settle an affair he had there. Disappointed and a bit disillusioned he had then wandered again the country north and south of Rome, gaining somewhat of a reputation for a moderate patriot and a trustworthy man.

For this reason ad his frequent travels he had been "recruited" for a mission in the Papal States, to contact local notable to support the cause of a "moderate" Italian unification, and possibly make use of his contacts with the Piedmontese court. Which resulted in a further season of traveling the country, meeting people and talking to them.

That is - for the purpose of this ong digression - that Italians spoke to each other just fine, when they had to. It's just that a lot of them didn't have to. When you consider that still at the beginning of XIX Century, the roads crossing the Basilicata region in the south were so bad that it was convenient for a land owner from Puglia to sell their wheat to Venice - by land first, then sea - rather than carrying it across the region to Naples, and that Naples in turn would import grains from Sicily and North Africa, you have an idea of how limited contacts could be for the people living outside of the major cities.

As for them, we do not really know how they felt - if they understood Italy, or Sicily or Palermo, or even thought of a power beyond their local "baron". The others; those who could move around, experience more of the world, sooner or later showcased lasting social changes.

It's not a coincidence that the most advanced centers of "political" activity were the ports of Genoa and Livorno - two major hubs that enjoyed constant traffic from French and British ships - the City of Milan which experienced a central economical role and the cultural inflix of both Paris and Vienna. When Sicily had been subject to the British occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, the chart granted by the military commander Lord Bentinck remained the symbol of a Sicilian autonomy from the mainland - but also for many a moment of formation of a Sicilian identity; that might not have been italian but was larger than the piece of land they had been tied to since their birth.

And if optimism for many of those men was not really warranted - and plenty of disillusionment would follow the unification - it would also be wrong to deny that they did share in fact some common values and ideals.

The "national education" purpose of the Italian establishment after the unification did not help bring to light those sentiments; if indeed they did exist. And the matter of how the Italian national identity came to be, and came to be negotiated between competing forces immediately after the unification is of absolute complexity and probably the work of one full academic career. But I tried to spotlight the issue that I think was behind your question.

In 1849 the people of Rome, in their riots against the Papal Government, still chanted Viva il Papa! Viva l'Italia! - we don't know how much of those abstract ideals they understood; perhaps D'Azeglio was right in thinking that the populace had shared little of the grand national inspiration of the political leaders, that they were either too simple (after all the idea that the people might be a subject of political thought did come with the idea that it could be a subject of political authority) or too spoiled from years of corrupt governments... but something of those ideas existed in them; at least for the purpose of expressing their own thoughts.

There really could be much more to say on the issue - I'll gladly expand, if I can, and if you have further questions.

Sources:

Candeloro, G. - Storia dell'Italia moderna

Degl'Innocenti, M. - Identità nazionale e poteri locali in Italia tra '800 e '900

Degl'Innocenti, M. - La patria divisa

Rosati, M. - Il Patriottismo italiano