It will also help to know a little history and geography. For example, it's good to know how place names have changed. You can spend a lot of time looking on a map for a town called Castrogiovanni without realizing that earlier this century it changed its name to Enna. Similarly, a town which was in one Province a hundred years ago might be in a different one today. And don't forget that Italy didn't even exist as a nation until 1861, with the parts around Rome not joining until 1870.
Place names can be a tad confusing.
Some of these guys simply had rotten handwriting, but there are ways of getting around the worst of them. There are a few standard problems, and few tricks to solve them. The capital letters that begin the surnames we are reading are often more than a little ambiguous. In the Monreale records I'm pursuing anybody with my mother's maiden name of Pizzo. Unfortunately, Monreale also had a Rizzo family.