> Italy's relationship with science is mired in corruption
Not any more than any other countries. I've dealt with many people from all over Europe thanks to a particular project I was involved in, and bad behaviors were truly cross-country (misappropriation of results, pressure to change authorship, "games" to move funding to allies or away from enemies...).
EDIT: What I mean is not that everyone is bad, but that rather bad behaviors even in my country are in the median with the others.
As a disclaimer, I am a scientist that is still working in Italy.