Have just returned from Italy. I spoke to somebody at the aero club in Fano. As I suspected a major difficulty would be your lack of Italian as this would preclude the exams and most of the ground school. There is also quite a lot of official paperwork required.
The strength of the £ does make flying there significantly cheaper than it used to be and it cheaper than in UK. At Fano they have a variety of aircraft including very nice C172 for well under £100 ph and a Siai Marchetti SF 260 for about £140 per hour - going to try to fly the latter when I go back out there in a couple of weeks time.