Overlook manuscripts describing Italy (4)
I believe the answer is:
miss
'overlook' is the definition.
(I know that overlook is a more specific form of miss)
'manuscripts describing italy' is the wordplay.
'manuscripts' becomes 'mss' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'describing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (describe can mean to form the outline of).
'italy' becomes 'i'.
'mss' placed around 'i' is 'MISS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for miss that I've seen before include "Fail to hear" , "Girl or unmarried woman" , "someone who isn't married" , "Girl - bad shot" , "Fail to get" .)