I live about an hour north of Piacenza - much closer to Milan....
Is your friend American or Italian (just curious.. I'm Canadian myself).

I do have long legs -but I am also quite long waisted... I think my arms are a normal length, but I'm definitely on generic-more-suited-to-a-man bike. My husband has exactly the same model but if you put them side by side mine actually looks quite a bit taller. (I'm just shy of 5'8" and he is just a little shorter).
At first I thought my problem was simply that I wasn't used to leaning forward - and that is true - I wasn't... but even though I am inconsistent with my riding and am now used to how the bike feels I still have what I consider far too much pain when I ride. I'm hoping this new bar helps and if it does I may look into switching bikes in the future... not this year though.

I am going to start doing more looking around to get an idea of which shops are more helpful and who in my area really knows what they are talking about.

Thanks for the welcome!