It is quite a common thing in Italy to make film productions where the actors/troupe speak 5-6 different languages among themselves, this is particularly true for 1960-70s productions: just take a look at the cast in films of Fellini, Leone or Mario Bava from that era.
Sergio Leone invented a whole sub-genre without speaking a word of the language his main actors spoke.
I don't think it's really important to know litteraly every word that comes from an actors mouth: as long as there is a really good translator at work beetween the scriptwriters and the actors.
I think a real talented director has to have an instinctive 'feel' to know that a scene is right, even if he does not understand what is being said.
It's pretty possible anyway that Radford knew quite a bit of italian language and culture before he made this film: just take a look at his earlier work: "Another Time, another place".
One curiosity, this might be sound really weird but is totally true:
until very recently it was a common thing in Italy to shoot films without sound, so all the dialogue would be later added in studio and dubbed by different actors from those you see on-screen, so, even when you watch a film with subtitles, often is not the actual actor's voice you are hearing. For example in early films of Claudia Cardinale (her voice apparently sounded too 'MASCULINE' for some................weirdos I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!
This obviously had its advantages, first of all to make it easier to work with so many actors of so many different first languages to the point (and this sounds even more weird, I know) that many actors didn't even bother to read the script or even had one given to them: they would just come out with random words or, often, numbers.
Just check carefully the lipwork sometimes, if you have time.
Good luck with your projects.
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