another option may be to use the NumberFormat class to parse the String into a Number.
You should be able to construct a BigDecimal from the Number (or its primitive equivalent).
The NumberFormat class has methods such as getXXXInstance with overloaded versions that will allow you to use a Locale as an argument. I think the Italy/Italian locale uses the "," instead of ".".
Using the API docs for the NumberFormat/Locale/BigDecimal classes you should be able to find what you are looking for.
[ July 14, 2008: Message edited by: Paul Beckett ]