There might be something called “French bread” in France, but in Italy the type of bread you get in Tuscany is really wildly different from any bread you would eat in Puglia or the Trentino or Liguria or Sardinia, etc etc, covering all 20 regions of Italy. Tuscan bread famously has no salt, for instance, whereas the bread I eat in Liguria is incredibly salty, and in no way resembles, even visually, the bread of most of Tuscany (which shares a border with Liguria). If I get a moment, I will put up pictures of local breads from different regions of Italy.
My recollection of what got sold as “Italian” bread in America was a dense semolina bread if it was a log, and there was a fluffier round white loaf with loads of sesame seeds on top.
I really doubt that any bread made in Italy is made with the same precision as most French bread. For one thing, Italians (even professional town bakeries) rarely have as much control over their humidity and oven temps as French bakers do.
