I’m Italian too, and I know that they are a bit lacking on land, that’s why here we are discussing of potential improvements for the civ.
To summarize it, the main buff that they need is a serious reduction of the training time of their castle UU (the Genovese Crossbowman, GC for short) since, like you said, they lack both halbs and camels, and GC still need to be massed to do its job, now that it simply takes too long.
As for a general buff, there are various theories and ideas in that link. That improvement mainly would come into the form of another bonus.
However, at least now, their other UU, the condo, seems good right now after the patch.