Ricci steel frame/carbon forks?

I bought a rather nice Italian framed audax bike recently - see photos below. It originally came from Ricci of Cornwall I believe. Its a steel Columbus (SL I think) frame. The size is 56cm. I was told that Italian frames are measured to the centre of seat tube and British to the top of seat tube. Is this true? I ask because I used to have a Raleigh Triathlon 21.5 inch bike and this was a perfect size. The Ricci may be a bit big but I'm persevering with tweaking seat/bar combos. I emailed Ricci with photos asking for details of the frame, tubing material etc but no resopnse.

Does anyone know anything about these frames? The downtube is triangular as opposed to round in section. It has proper threaded holes for lights on each fork. I guess they're generic Italian steel rebadged by the shop? To cut to the chase I'm thinking about carbon forks with mudguard eyes to lighten the weight a bit. It has a Chorus threaded headset on a quill adapter. What measurements should I use for speccing a fork? I guess I need a 1" threaded one? But I'm not sure about the steerer length.

Steve

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Ricci

You'll only save a pound in weight but lose loads in looks and end up with a quality Ricci fork that you can't do much with really.
I've changed to carbon before and regretted it. They do make the ride a bit more modern but when you go back to steel you seem to enjoy it more. Steel forks 'feel' safer on a steel bike I reckon.

And some of these cheap carbon efforts are dreadful. I changed to an Easton EC30? or EC50? once and it instantly made the bike feel like a rubber gate! I had to get a Ouzo Pro to sort it out but by then I was then £200 worse off!

Think about little 'P clips' for mudguards lined with little cuttings of innertube. They work a treat.