Accounts of phonetic properties of the italian orthography have been ... slightly exaggerated :-)
E.g. Italian has 5 written vowels, although (in many dialects, including standard Italian) if has 7 (the o in "corto" is not the same as in "cosa", and there are some words which would be allophones were it not for the different quality of the "e" vowel, like "pesca" which means peach with a phonetic ɛ/è vs fishery/inflection of the verb to fish, when with a phonetic e/é)
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Accounts of phonetic properties of the italian orthography have been ... slightly exaggerated :-)
E.g. Italian has 5 written vowels, although (in many dialects, including standard Italian) if has 7 (the o in "corto" is not the same as in "cosa", and there are some words which would be allophones were it not for the different quality of the "e" vowel, like "pesca" which means peach with a phonetic ɛ/è vs fishery/inflection of the verb to fish, when with a phonetic e/é)