Meanwhile, here in Europe, Italian politics is - as usual - a mess.

theguardian.com

TL;DR version; most likely, there will be a snap election in Italy, probably sometime later this summer (about two or three months from now). And that snap election is going to be an unofficial referendum on whether Italy stays in the Eurozone or not.

Italy crashing out of the EZ, returning to the Lira and effectively defaulting on its 2.3 trillion Euro debt ($2.7 trillion USD) would have catastrophic effects on Italy’s already stagnant economy - and those catastrophic effects would invariably cascade throughout the EU; bank failures, etc.

The effect of Italy pulling out of the EZ would basically be like the Greek financial crisis on steroids.

ETA: a minor clarification.