In short, it's a mixture of the Mediterranean disposition and having no real modern achievements apart from a globally recognized cuisine. This leads to overprotectiveness when it comes to the only thing they have apart from sports cars. The level of this autistic attachment to doing things exactly the way it's been done for generations actively hinders any sort of progress. Italian cuisine isn't growing or developing at the rate of others. It's all a bunch of renditions of the same old shit. There's no refinement left to do, so it's just stagnating.

One thing to notice with Italians is how insanely ignorant they actually are of Italian cuisine. Italian cuisine is extremely diverse and varies region to region, village to village, and even household to household, yet you see a Italians screaming "MAMA MIA! NO! NOOOO! THAT'SA NOT-A HOW ME NONNA MAKE IT! NOT AUTHENTICO ITALIANO!" Imagine someone from Michoacan saying authentic Mexican food doesn't employ beef, being totally ignorant of the regions that historically relied heavily on cattle ranching. That's the average Italian.

I almost want to sympathize because Italian food is heavily bastardized by pretty much everyone (Americans, British, and Japanese are pretty big offenders), but can't because that's true for a lot of cuisines and you don't see the same same degree of histrionics.