Italy, a country known for its language of love and for its men who publicly shower overtures on women like a centuries-old art form, is often associated with romantic encounters of the kind portrayed in the movies, from “Roman Holiday” to “The Lizzie McGuire Movie.” So some black women ask, why shouldn’t it be the same for them?

Latrese Williams is one such black traveler. When Ms. Williams goes out in Chicago or pretty much anywhere else in the United States, she said, she often feels ignored by men who seem to barely register her existence. But when she walks into a room in Italy, all eyes are on her — and to her, that’s a good thing. These polar reactions occur, she said, because she is black.

“Even though I would behave in the same way at home and abroad, in Chicago I felt invisible,” Ms. Williams said in her home in the Monti neighborhood of Rome. “But in Italy I kept meeting guys.”

In November, she moved in with her Italian boyfriend, whom she met on Tinder in Rome.

In recent years, Italy has become known for widely publicized episodes of racism against African migrants or dark-skinned people perceived as migrants, and even racial abuse toward Italy’s own black soccer players. It may be surprising that there is a steady stream of black women who travel to Italy in search of amore.