I think i'm the most italian around
i have full italian background and i live in italy, so i'm fully INSIDE italian reality. that name of good lovers was brought to us when we were emigrants to anglso saxon countries. it was a stereotype of the italian: lazy, not-so-honest, not-so-clean, but very keen on sex: just like blacks.
Most italian men think they've samll penises, and sexual problems are common here as much as in all western countries, so italians have no illusions on thys name they have of good lovers, not in italy at least.
The point is that our society changed radically in the 60s/70s, with women's emancipation and the loss of power of Roman Catholic Church. During that perios we passed thu a sexual revolution that hasn't yet been completely ended,
Now sex isn't felt as a sin anymore, so even between italians it lost much of its "prohibited" appeal: before, when evertything was unmoral and everything was however possible, we were much more keen on it: it's just the italian way, when something is not permitted it doubles its charme.
The other point was the women's emancipation: before italian women were very repressed, from the sexual point of wiew, at the point that many of them thought that only prostitutes and men could have orgasms. now, luckly, women want their sexual life and sexual pleasure, but the problem is that they've become (in italy) TOO aggressive, and, say, they tend to think they're the best in the world and make hard to a guy to afford a try with them.
on my opinion that's the history of the birth and death of the latin lover myth.