This is laughable...Italians are probably the LEAST patriotic of Europeans...and it has its roots in regionalism and a patent distrust of authority. Berlusconi knows the Italian psyche very well, so to incite patriotism may sound good (very operatic of him) but no Italian I know, including myself and my family, ever feels any lost love for the state...
Now if the state decided to pay me to fly Alitalia, hmmm... oh, wait, don't they do that already?