Italian love affair lacking a bit of spice (5)
I believe the answer is:
roman
'italian' is the definition.
(someone from Rome)
'love affair lacking a bit of spice' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'love' could be 'o' (love means zero in tennis) and 'o' is present in the answer.
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for roman that I've seen before include "Caesar among others" , "Like a type" , "Our alphabet; upright type" , "Citizen of Italian capital" , "Like the English alphabet" .)