Sprawling Rome south of intimate Italian city (7)
I believe the answer is:
palermo
'italian city' is the definition.
(city in Italy)
'sprawling rome south of intimate' is the wordplay.
'sprawling' indicates anagramming the letters.
'south of' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, some letters go under others).
'intimate' becomes 'pal' (I've seen this in another clue).
'rome' is an anagram of 'ermo'.
'ermo' after 'pal' is 'PALERMO'.
(Other definitions for palermo that I've seen before include "Sicilian city" , "Sicilian capital" , "Sicilian port" , "Main city of Sicily" , "Chief city of Sicily" .)