Majorly wrote:
This is often stuff from a long time ago, when things like verifiablity were probably not as well enforced as today. People would probably copy stuff from other places, or what they personally knew (original research) but not give a source (or, they didn't research properly and simply cited another Wikipedia article which was done in the same way.) For an article like Italy, I personally think it is vital such source don't exist. It's one of our "Vital articles" and an article that should be on every language Wikipedia. It's a bad choice for an article to have such bad sourcing.
It is wrong to equate what someone personally knew with original research.
I see nothing wrong with citing other Wikipedia articles in some circumstances. In some cases a link to an other-language wikipedia may be suitable because the material does not yet appear on the English language version. Like other web references such citations should probably be dated to allow for the fact that the material may have later been removed from the article.
Ec