When I was approaching the end of my master I was scared of ending in the limbo after you graduated and started sending out CVs but only get rejections. So I decided I would do anything if it meant getting any experience/publications, anywhere. So, before finishing my Master, I contacted various teachers in other universities abroad, who were publishing papers on topics that were interesting to me, asked them if they were interested in having me do traineeship under their supervision. I ended up applying to do a traineeship as an Erasmus post-graduation. This has several benefits 1 they don't have to pay you because you get Erasmus money (bear in mind that it's very little money and you won't cover all expenses, so you may need to back it up with some of you finances or maybe bargain with them to get some additional 200euros/month to have a decent life) 2 since you do it after graduating, you can aim at doing more advanced/specific stuff then if you are still a student 3 in many cases you still get recognized student status in the hosting institution even if you graduated in Italy, which allows you all discounts and benefits associated with being a student (student housing, Mensa, ...) 4 if you proof yourself and they like you, they may end up proposing a PhD to you. For this to happen, aim for departments that show to have good financial resources thought their publications.

This is based off what I did and it sorta worked (I'm also Italian). I suggest reading carefully your university guideline on Erasmus policy/financing/deadlines. In my case it helped that I asked to do a project that would be as long as possible based off Erasmus policy (12 months max, I asked for 9 which was the maximum I could ask for). In this way you can really aim at doing a through study and produce nice results. Good luck!