How much of the language do you need to know to travel italy with ease?

none- but "per favore" and "grazie" are absolute necessities when dealing with people as special and beautiful as Italians

It depends on where you're going. For the larger cities like Rome or Florence, it would be nice to know the polite words and make a little bit of an effort to speak the language, but you'll get along fine with English. In some of the smaller towns, I would definitely have a phrase book handy.

I have traveled a fair amount in Italy and have never encountered anyone who didn't speak English pretty well<BR>

Take the time to learn a 30 word vocab of the essentials and you will be fine. Be sure to include " dove la toileta" and " il conto, per favore"--you will need both. My favorite Italian word is " gelato". It is a national treasure and required daily.

Depends where. In Florence, you could easily get along fine speaking just English. (Except in the train station, but even speaking Italian won't make you have an easy time in that awful place.) In most smaller touristy places, you an probably gey along speaking Engliss, with a few polite phraqses in Italian, and being able to ask in Italian whether you may speak Englisn. But in less visited areas, e.g., rural areas and smaller towns in the south, English speakers may be very rare, and it would help to be able to communicate effectively in Italian in a wide range of situations--not necessarily perfectly, but enough to express all your needs in Italian without resorting to English at all.