To exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship, individual must have all documents registered in Italy, which normally involves the local consulate or embassy.

However, the mass Italian immigration tide that would only be second to the Portuguese and German migrant movements in shaping modern Brazilian culture started only after the 1848-1871 Risorgimento.

The increased pressure of the abolitionist movement, on the other hand, made it clear that the days of slavery in Brazil were coming to an end.

An Agriculture Congress in 1878 in Rio de Janeiro discussed the lack of labor and proposed to the government the stimulation of European immigration to Brazil.

The Brazilian government, with or following the Emperor's support, had created the first colonies of immigrants (colônias de imigrantes) in the early 19th century.

[22] On the other hand, in the 20th century, southern Italians predominated in Brazil, coming from the regions of Campania, Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata and Sicily.

That was part of the political plan of the new fascist government to link Italian people living outside of Italy with their mother country and the interests of the regime.

The visit was disrupted considerably by the ongoing Tenente revolts, which made it impossible for Umberto to reach Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The research interviewed about 90,000 people in six metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Recife).

In the early 20th century, many rural Italian workers from Rio Grande do Sul migrated to the west of Santa Catarina and then farther north to Paraná.

[34][35] The main areas of Italian settlement in Brazil were the Southern and Southeastern Regions, namely the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais.

Many posters were spread in Italy, with pictures of Brazil, selling the idea that everybody could become rich there by working with coffee, which was called by the Italian immigrants the green gold.

[38] The colono, as a rural immigrant was called, had to sign a contract with the farmer to work in the coffee plantation for a minimum period of time.

Many rebellions against Brazilian farmers occurred, and public denouncements caused great commotion in Italy, forcing the Italian government to issue the Prinetti Decree, which established barriers to immigration to Brazil.

In consequence, passages were offered to Europeans (the so-called "subsidized immigration"), mostly to Italians, so that they could come to Brazil and work on the plantations.

Contracts signed by the immigrants could easily be violated by the Brazilian landowners who were accustomed to dealing with African slaves.

The remnants of slavery influenced how Brazilian landowners dealt with Italian workers: immigrants were often monitored, with extensive hours of work.

In São Paulo, those workers established themselves in the center of the city, living in cortiços (degraded multifamily row houses).

"[30] Despite the poverty and even semi-slavery conditions faced by many Italians in Brazil, most of the population achieved some personal success and changed their lower-class situation.

Even though most of the first generation of immigrants still lived in poverty, their children, born in Brazil, often changed their social status as they diversified their field of work, leaving the poor conditions of their parents and often becoming part of the local elite.

[30] A major measure of the government occurred in 1889, when Brazilian citizenship was granted to all immigrants, but the act had little influence on their identity or assimilation process.

[54] Italian immigrants were very important to the development of many big cities in Brazil, such as São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte.

[34] Italians and their descendants were also quick to organize themselves and establish mutual aid societies (such as the Circolo Italiano), hospitals, schools (such as the Istituto Colégio Dante Alighieri, in São Paulo), labor unions, newspapers as Il Piccolo from Mooca and Fanfulla (for the whole city of São Paulo), magazines, radio stations and association football teams such as: Clube Atlético Votorantim, the old Sport Club Savóia from Sorocaba, Clube Atlético Juventus of Italians Brazilians from Mooca (old worker quarter from city of São Paulo), Esporte Clube Juventude and the great clubs (which had the same name) Palestra Italia, later renamed to Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras in São Paulo and Cruzeiro Esporte Clube in Belo Horizonte.

In the State of São Paulo, the Italian community was more diverse including a large number of people from the South and the Center of Italy.

Since Southern Brazil received most of the early settlers, the vast majority of its immigrants came from the extreme North of Italy, mainly from Veneto and particularly from the provinces of Vicenza (32%), Belluno (30%) and Treviso (24%).

[30] In Rio Grande do Sul, many came from Cremona, Mantua, from parts of Brescia, and also from Bergamo, in the region of Lombardy, close to Veneto.

[59] From the early 20th century, the agrarian crisis started to affect Southern Italy as well, and many people immigrated to Brazil, mostly to the state of São Paulo, since it needed workers to embrace the coffee plantations.

[2] In Southern Brazilian rural areas marked by bilingualism, even among the monolingual Portuguese-speaking population, the Italian-influenced accent is fairly typical.

Galeto (from the Italian galletto, little rooster), frango com polenta (chicken with fried polenta), Bife à parmegiana (a steak prepared with Parmigiano-Reggiano), Mortadella sandwich (a sandwich made of mortadella sausage, Provolone cheese, sourdough bread, mayonnaise and Dijon mustard), Catupiry cheese, new types of sausage like linguiça Calabresa and linguiça Toscana (literally Calabrian and Tuscan sausage),[74] chocotone (panettone with chocolate chips) and many other recipes were created or influenced by the Italian community.

[78] The tradition of serving gnocchi on the 29th of each month stems from a legend based on the story of Saint Pantaleon, a young doctor from Nicomedia who, after converting to Christianity, made a pilgrimage through northern Italy.