I have only very limited experience of Italian VFR, but from what I've seen, they're no more or less co-operative than anywhere else really, although the answer to the question "can I transit at FLxxx" seems always to be, "yes, transit approved at 1000 ft" !
Suggest you try the guys at Italian AOPA, they were pretty helpful to me, but I really don't think you should have a problem.
All ATC we spoke to had pretty good English, so the only terminology advice I can give is
"yes we have AVGAS" = "we'll have AVGAS next week sometime" !
FF
