I am learning a lot from so many generous loggers on this sight and I thank you all for this !!! Who doesn't love Italian ? I am please to read that I could learn both spanish/Italian, OK ? Do I need to be concerned with the whole American Spanish verses Spanish very much ?

¿Que Dices? Ciao Nora. Glad you asked this question because I have my master's degree in Spanish(taught high school Spanish)
and lived and went to school in Italy. Nora, there is very little difference between American Spanish and Spanish from Spain
especially if you are half way fluent in Spanish and half way open minded. Even Italian and Spanish are close so just imagine
Spanish from Spain and American Spanish. It's more the accent than anything else. It's some what ironic that the Spanish of
southern Spain is actually more like American Spanish than the typical Spanish from Madrid called Castellano. At any rate
just think of American English and English from England. Different but then again that's what makes languages interesting
are the dialects. Here in California we have Spanish speakers from just about all 20 some Spanish speaking countries and I've
dealt with them all and have yet come across a dialect of Spanish I can't understand.

This past summer I was in Italy for a month. Met a lot of Spanish speakers especially form Peru and Ecuador. They all spoke
Italian and all said they learned Italian in a few months.

Thanks Villa for sharing your knowledge of language. I have read a lot of your post on Language and have found them very helpful as I apply them to my studies. It is truly a gift you have given this sight !!! Perhaps your my hero :-)

From my experience it is always better to start learning a language from the "Standard" version, and then when you have a good proficiency get in deep with the variations. The biggest reason is that you'll find plenty of material about English RP for instance, while its variations aren't so immediate to find.
American and Standard Spanish then are very similar as Villa already said, American Spanish only major common traits of difference are the seseo, the "vos sos" and a few other things I won't list not to bore you
Hence it's quite easy to adapt to those few changes and understand anyways, while Italian can vary much more in a more little territory.
Anyways Spanish+Italian can work, but you have to be very good at it as it can be confused, I'd focus first on one then on the other, as the learning of one can really help in the learning of another, but doing it at the same time it can be problematic.

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Thank you Zidanie5, it was kind of you to notice my post and reply. There is so much information on Spanish that it is overwhelming. I have a couple of Spanish soft wares to start but I find them boring ! Villa seems to strongly suggest flash cards. But do you think I should start with verbs, vocabulary or common phrases ? I think common phrases so I can get out there with my Spanish speaking co-workers. It is hard to turn away from my Italian daydream to be focused on the reality of Spanish in my life but just the different accents of the two languages gets me tongue tied. Enjoy Italy for me OK ? Ciao