Try to eat with your right hand, especially in conservative areas. There's a lingering Catholic bias against la mano del diavolo, the left hand.

Take espresso at the end of the meal, after dessert. "Cappuccino after ten in the morning is immoral and illegal," says Beppe Severgnini. "It's dogma; you don't need to explain this. You have to accept it. In the middle of the winter in Trieste, okay. We push it to eleven."

EXPERT ADVICE
Tips from Beppe Severgnini, author of La Bella Figura

DO have a glass of wine with lunch, but don't get drunk during dinner or at any other time. Beppe is like most Italians: "I have a glass of wine with dinner; I don't attack the minibar in the hotel room." Although bars are becoming a late-night diversion for the younger generation, the tradition of a stand-up pre-dinner aperitivo—wine for the middle classes, Campari mixers for workingmen—still predominates.

DO "trust the restaurateur's advice and skills during the meal" but NOT "what he puts on the bill."

DO be cordial, social, and touchy with friends (it's even normal for two men to sit on a bench at the same side of a table), but don't kiss first-time acquaintances.

DO be aware of Italians' proficiency with hand gestures, but don't try to be an expert at them. Beppe recently consented to have a speech he gave at Columbia University taped, only to discover that they had filmed his hands for an anthropological study on Italian hand syntax. "Only do it if you are completely certain that you know the gesture and what it means," he says. Avoid making a circle with two hands ("I'll kick your ass"), an okay signal ("You might be gay"), or the devil horns with your hand (you're not saying rock on, you're saying that his wife is rocking on with somebody else).

DON'T underdress OR overdress. "We think of Americans as doing both," says Beppe. "A suit and a shirt with no tie is safe enough."

DO talk freely about religion, class, and other sensitive topics, but DON'T bring them up in front of a priest—and not for the reason you'd think. "He'll love talking about it so much that he won't stop."

DO let a woman go first through a door if you're a man—but not into a restaurant. There, you're expected to lead the way and make the arrangements.

DON'T switch to a first-name basis until prompted, but do repeat your own name. "It's typical of a dinner party in America," Beppe says. "The Italian guest is trying to remember the woman's name, and she's already telling him about the second divorce from her third husband."

THE ROAD
Getting by on Italy's roads—probably the most dangerous in Western Europe—is less a matter of etiquette than of patience and contained aggression. It helps to know a few things when navigating them, either as a driver or as a pedestrian