Perche

Drop the * criteria. The number of stars a hotel has in Italy is meaningless.
A 1* hotel is often better than a 5* hotel. It's just a local checklist of what you have to have. A 5* hotel in Naples would have nothing to do with a 5* hotel in Venice. Different criteria.
The star system in Italy has nothing to do with the view, decor, or comfort of the beds.

Forget stars. It has to do with a checklist, for example, size of the lobby. There are fantastic historic buildings that have been turned into a hotel, but they don't have a lobby of the size to qualify for a star. I've stayed in dozens of 5 star hotels, a requirement is a 24 hr per day person at the check table. Yes, they have them, and get the extra star, but at night I always have to jump over the lobby desk, go into the back to find them, and wake them up.

Italy is old. To get 5*'s you must have an elevator. Most hotels in Italy were build before they invented the elevator, and so the best, most historic hotels will never be 5*.

Relying on the star system in Italy is a useless as relying on Michelin for restaurants. Michelin is a French car tire company, and they weren't selling many tires. So they hired some, "experts," to drive into rural areas to rate restaurants, with the hope of getting people to get into their cars and wear out their tires faster by driving out to them.

Instead of stars, and especially instead of "ratings" by people who have only traveled to a city once and have only been in one hotel (you can't rate something if it's the only place you've experienced), think more about location, and actual amenities.

Ditch the car.