Consider ways in which the contrast between ancient and modern Italy is aritculated in Madame de Stael's Corrine.

Corinne explores issues of nationality: what does it mean to be English, German, French, Italian. As a part of this exploration, the novel contrasts the modern Italians unfavorably to the ancient Romans, but also notes their potential for renewed greatness.
The English Oswald and the French Count d'Erfeuil both hold prejudices against the Italians as they enter Rome. The narrator compares modern Italians unfavorably to the Italy of the former days, writing

The Italians are much more remarkable for what they have been, and for what they might be than for what they actually are.

That remark notes what the Italians have achieved before. It also suggests the potential that lies within them for future glory. Right at the moment of arriving at Rome, however, the less admirable qualities of the Italians strike both visitors. To Oswald's English sensibilities, the land seems "fatigued with glory," and "an uncultivated and neglected country." He blames this on the current "indolence" of the people and their rulers. The count compares Rome unfavorably to Paris. To Oswald, Rome seems a lost city, the people, no longer what they once were, squatting like strangers in a place of former grandeur. He thinks:

even the Romans seem to inhabit there not as the possessors, but like pilgrims who repose beneath the ruins.

The narrative continues to depict the Italians as people no longer living up to their former, disciplined warrior past. They can only excel at the arts; they are given to laziness, and they show a preference for the imagination over reason:

The happy inhabitants of the south sometimes shrink from this fatigue [of meditation, rational thinking], and flatter themselves that imagination will do everything for them, as their fertile soil produces fruit without cultivation assisted only by the bounty of the sky.

Oswald holds many prejudices against the Italians:

He believed them passionate, but changeable, and incapable of any deep and lasting affection.

Under the influence of Corinne, he begins to change his ideas. However, even Corinne admits the Italians are not what they were once. She says:

But when you are acquainted with the Italians, you will see that they possess in their character, some traces of ancient greatness, some rare traces which, though now effaced, may appear again in happier times.

By contrasting the ancient Romans to the current Italians, de Stael depicts a fallen, degenerated people who have the potential to be great again.