ENVIRONMENT : Italy’s War on Urban Smog Running Out of Gas : Voters love their cars, and politicians love their votes.

Newly come to the quest for clean air and a healthy environment, Italy is warring on the noxious automobile with operatic pretensions but farcical results. The car is winning.

Italians are accustomed to having their lungs and monuments blackened by urban life. This winter, thanks to improved monitoring, they have come to know exactly how foul the air is in their major cities.

Rome, Milan, Turin and Naples head the list of a dozen cities whose concentrations of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide have exceeded safety limits this winter.

The car is the principal villain: Only one car in 100 has the sort of pollution-reducing catalytic converter that is required in the United States and will be required on all new cars sold in the European Community next year.

Badgered by Environment Minister Giorgio Ruffolo, one city after another trumpeted bold intentions as pollution levels rose.

Bans against private cars in the historic centers of most cities were stiffened. Alternate-day driving was imposed--odd-numbered license plates one day, even the next. Rome and Florence declared car-less days.

Not everybody thought it was a good idea. At a Cabinet meeting earlier this month at which Ruffolo was absent, the government of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti overruled both Ruffolo and the big-city mayors, many of whom are legally required to act when pollution levels reach danger levels.

The government abolished all the bans, saying cities did not have the power to impose them. Rather, it was left to regional governments--the Italian version of American states--to act. Most haven’t.

The ensuing muddle in Rome drove the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano not to the Bible but to Greek mythology for a suitable simile.

“The City Council is like Penelope, first weaving and then unraveling her work,” the newspaper remarked, recalling the faithful and patient wife of Homer’s Ulysses awaiting her husband’s return.

Seeing no end to their own uphill odyssey, Italian environmental groups have been less restrained. In fury, the League for the Environment called the government flip-flop “incredible, extremely grave and senseless.”

Opponents charge that the government was acting less in the public interest than in fear of angering voters who cherish their long love affair with the automobile: There is nearly one car for every two of the 58 million Italians.

Then, too, traffic restrictions hamper commerce at a time when the economy seems to be sliding into recession. And--critically--national elections are scheduled for early April.

Its own traffic bans frustrated, Rome has turned to fiercer enforcement of longtime restrictions in downtown areas. More police officers have been hired, giving smaller Rome five times as many traffic cops as London.

Still, there’s trouble at city hall up on the Capitoline Hill, where the bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, a civic signature for two millennia, has been removed for good--one more illustrious victim of pollution.

The mayor fired the chief of the traffic police earlier this month. Now, minority members of the city council are demanding the mayor’s resignation.

“The city of Rome is not protecting the health of its citizens,” said member of Parliament Massimo Scalia, a Greens party member, charging that 20% of the city’s pollution is caused by defective heating plants.

While there seems no new hope for their lungs this cold and dirty winter, long-suffering urban Italians may get some help for their ears.

A Roman trademark, wailing caravans of VIPs behind police cars with ear-splitting sirens, has been abolished.

Henceforth, only the Pope, the president and the prime minister may have motorcades with sirens and flashing lights. All other dignitaries must caravan in silence and even stop for red lights--if the snarling, polluting traffic doesn’t stop them first.