Unfortunately you are correct, which means that here in Malta you get an 18th century fort dwarfed by high rise buildings

Ok, ranting apart, yes, you are correct, at least for the bits of Italy I have visited and for Malta, where I live. Nothing much Gothic though.
To give an example, in WWII naval and AA guns were mounted in Fort St Elmo, which had been previously refurbished by the Knights of Malta in the late 16th century and early 17th; and the War Room, where you had RAF plotters guiding defending fighters, was deep beneath the bastions of Valletta. You can still find photos of Beaufighters in pens by a runway with a baroque church in the background and rubble walls in the foreground. Much of the same applies to Sicily: the town of Modica, for example, has several baroque buildings which survived a huge flood, an earthquake and are still there today, and therefore would have been there in WWII. They also have great chocolate...
Hope this helps.