I’d recommend checking out the US State Department’s language lessons. They are free.
If you were hired as a US diplomat this is the course they’d give you.
That said, I think they say the course for Italian is 24 weeks.
But, you can get a start…
ETA: I was in Italy a couple years ago and some friends I was with are fluent Spanish speakers. I was amazed at how far they could get speaking to Italians in Spanish. They could not have a full blown conversation but the languages were close enough they could muddle through without much trouble. If you happen to know Spanish I think you’ll manage better than you might expect.