Yes of course in Italy there is 240 volt only now like all the Europe, but as said since it's motor and internal parts comes from a Westinghouse, so american built I guess, it does work with 120 volt (at least this is what they say in the ad, so I go by guessing), remember though that in 50s and 60s, this at least in Italy it was usual to find double voltage supply in certain homes/areas, remember also that in certain parts of the country electric land lines made their input just in mid 60s in urban areas, much later in rural areas and sometimes never.... certain homes or neighborhood in rural communities were provided with generators producing both 220 and 120 volt current for the area managed and provided/rented by the electric companies and or managed and owned by the neighborhood community, for example, my father's farm had his own generator till 3 years ago providing electricity to all the sorrounding area and farms, every home/property was provided with a current-o-meter to calculate and divide expenses at next fuel fill, this became not worth it during last years because of fuel cos tand fuel refill/transport cost, so they collected money to Enel to build a land line for that area, anyway it is not unusual to find VTG small appliances made in Italy running on 120 volt or double voltage switch, such as as VTG hair dryers, coffee grinders, Irons etc.....
You now will wonder......and for those having 240 volt only? How could that washer run? Well the problem was solved with a transformer for sure, and I guess it was provided with the machine.....
In Italy many american made appliances and product were imported in those years, maybe was the only european country doing that, Italy initially preferred buy american rather than german products, probably because of the malevolence toward Germany and Germans that until few years before, really did a mess and deaths over here with Nazi occupation, then germans were defeated and Italy was liberated and helped by americans...
But I don't want bother you with History.....
Then the american importing stopped because of many reasons including competitive prices (of course) of german and italian appliances, in the meantime Italy grew up and started producing their own appliances during late 50s early 60s (often following and copying the german models) and this with economical boom in 60s, it is not a case all italian appliance manufactures started exporting machines just during 60s while german ones were into exporting already since the early 50s... .... about foreign appliances the german appliances became the majority over here after that, italians made their machines to work with the europe-wide standardized current voltage so 120 volt supplies were definitely abandoned.....