I'm Italian and lived there for a good chunk of my life, before awakening to the truth and escaping to the other side of the pond (this side).
Short story: laws-wise (be it firearms or basically everything else), Italy sucks big time, to the point that I don't see myself moving back anytime soon (touches wood)
Long story: to whoever said that Italian firearms laws are similar to Canada's... wrong! Very, very wrong!
From what I can remember:
1) hunting license is now ~600 euros/year (was just told so by grandpa last Sunday)
2) Hunting anything with anything less than 5.6mm is illegal (so no 22lr for small game)
3) they have some weird firearm classification. I *think* they can own 3 handguns and unlimited smooth bore hunting rifles
4) rifled bore hunting is province regulated. In Piedmont it's basically prohibited.
5) For wild boar (I think) hunting, there must be at least 15 hunters in the team
6) no 9x19 or 5.56. They use 9X21. But can use .308, go figure.
7) This one I love: maximum of 200 rnds of handgun ammunition in storage. You can buy more and head to the range immediately, but no storage. Yes, the limit includes 22lr, so no 500+ value packs.
They recently introduced the castle doctrine however...
So, why so many shotguns? Italy is basically a country stuck in the past (heck, they don't even "get" the whole credit card deal yet...). Except for materials (related to aerospace) they don't have much of a high tech industry. IT is basically non-existent, compared to other western nations).
Yes, it's a cultural thing, kind of "it's the way it is", but also there's isn't much you can do in the fields except with a shotgun.