Well I bought train tickets at Trenitalia kiosks at the Verona and Vicenza stations.
It rejected my other Visa cards but did work with my Star One Visa with EMV.
Odd thing is, when I put in the stripe cards, the screen instructed me to withdraw the card while the LCD screen above a keypad on the right was prompting for a PIN. I tried 0000 even though there were no chips in the cards. Eventually it cancelled the transaction, though I don't think it detected the lack of the chip.
So I re-did the transaction and then inserted my EMV card. It didn't tell me to withdraw nor prompt me for a PIN. Immediately the LCD showed 'operation in process' in Italian -- while the main screen and the voice instructions were in English, which I switched the language to.
Good to have a backup and saved me having to wait in line. But not expecting it would work to buy say 60 € of gas when there are no attendants.