Wonder if this gun was picked up by Italian forces in Africa in WWII? Not impossible; for a while (short) they were winning down there.... Or just looted from an English property in Italy when the owners left for safer surroundings.
And remember many Italians, especially Sicilians and the upper crust on the mainland, were quite Anglophilic/lukewarm Fascists and NOT enthusiastic about fighting the British and Americans, especially naval officers. So it might originally have been an English gun owned by an Italian.
Just another one of those darned "if only it could talk" situations.
