Wow, thank you so very much for your efforts and thoughtful reply! I will follow up on your suggestion, perhaps immediately.
I really appreciate this. Thank you!

So, on a familiar to me US Patent from the early 1960s, there is mention of earlier priority, referring to a patent application and / or perhaps issue, in Italy a few years previous. I am having difficulty finding anything more about this. Were such documents simply not added to the electronic datab...