Short fellow embracing Italian woman, a national symbol (9)
I believe the answer is:
britannia
'a national symbol' is the definition.
(I know that Britannia is a national symbol)
'short fellow embracing italian woman' is the wordplay.
'short fellow' becomes 'bria' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'embracing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'italian' becomes 'it' (abbreviation for Italian).
'woman' becomes 'ann' (woman's name).
'it'+'ann'='itann'
'bria' enclosing 'itann' is 'BRITANNIA'.
(Other definitions for britannia that I've seen before include "province" , "A monetary figure" , "Female personification of main UK island" , "Female warrior" , "often following rule" .)