The italian.dtx file has version number 1.4.03 dated  2019-11-16.
It is and update of a series fo files stating with the first one in 1990
Copyright (C) 1990-2019 Claudio Beccari
Maintainer Claudio Beccari
Contact: claudio dot beccari at gmail dot com

This bundle containes the source file italian.dtx and this README.txt file. By running pdfLaTeX on thei italian.dtx file you obtain bith the documentation italian.pdf and the language description file italian.ldf.

Description
This file contain the necessary and supplementary data for typesetting documents in Italian with babel as the manager of the language management.
It defines the infix words, the date in various formats. Optionally lets the user activate a number of shorthands to performe routine frequent tasks by means of the active character " that can be freely activated and deactivated. 
It defines an intelligent mathematical comma that recognises if it has to perform as a punctuation mark or as a decimal separator. Another user command activates or deactivates some commands to supply a minimum of the performance that is fully provided by the siunitx package. The file allows using babel also when a document is typeset with XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, even if, according to the author, polyglossia is preferred when typesetting documents in Italian, in spite of the fact that gloss-italian.ldf for polyglossia provides less facilities than the ones available with babel.
Supposedly since version 1.4.03 this file should be usable also with babel+uplatex

The documentation that is provided by running LaTeX on the italian.dtx file provides full documentation of every facility provided by the italian.ldf file.

The documentation contains the licence clauses.

