I don't think we're actually slow. Yes, the risk was clear from the beginning, but the government had to take care of the economic situation too, which was (and is) rapidly collapsing. Some choices are maybe arguable, but when compared to other EU countries Italians were quite fast to converge to some decisions.

Foreign Policy, which has pretty good corona virus reporting, strongly disagrees with your opinion.[1]

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/09/italy-covid19-coronavir...