Hi, as a CO PLT member, I have tried to do this in the past, so let me just summarize some points for you:

1. Two first class award tickets are very hard to get on any airline (most airlines have 10-14 seats in their international First Class cabins), at least on the same flights.

2. Having said that, it is important to note that the only Skyteam member offering an international First Class product from the US to Europe is Air France, and now that they have relaunched their First Class to make it nicer, the number of seats has gone down to 8, thus, I highly doubt they will have more than 1 award seat in F available per flight. No other Skyteam member offers an international First Class, just Business and Coach basically, on the US to Europe market (Korean Air has 3 classes of service but they don't fly from the US to Europe).

3. Two business class award tickets would be much easier to find. Virgin Atlantic has a great Upper Class featuring inflight massages, an inflight bar, sleep suits (not many airlines out there give out sleep suits in business class!), and very nice seats, well at least I find the new Upper Class suites to be comfortable (these suites recline to a 180 degrees, truly flat). The problem is, Virgin Atlantic is not a Skyteam member and they certainly do not fly to Rome. This means that if you choose to fly Virgin, you will be responsible for a connection flight from London to Italy.

4. You may want to consider flying Air France in Business Class, they now have great lie-flat seats in both First and Business Class. Northwest also has lie-flat seats in World Business Class but only on A330 and select B747-400 aircraft. As you know, Continental has lie-flat seats in BusinessFirst on all B777 aircraft. Other than that, no other Skyteam member airlines has lie-flat seats in Business Class. Alitalia has nice seats on their new B777s, but they are not flat.