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The outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy took place in Lombardia, a densely populated and highly industrialized northern region, and spread across the northern and central part of Italy according to quite different temporal and spatial patterns. In this work, a multi-scale territorial analysis of the pandemic is carried out using various models and data-driven approaches. Specifically, a logistic regression is employed to capture the evolution of the total positive cases in each region and throughout Italy, and an enhanced version of a SIR-type model is tuned to fit the different territorial epidemic dynamics via a differential evolution algorithm. Hierarchical clustering and multidimensional analysis are further exploited to reveal the similarities/dissimilarities of the remarkably different geographical epidemic developments. The combination of parametric identifications and multi-scale data-driven analyses paves the way toward a closer understanding of the nonlinear, spatially nonuniform epidemic spreading in Italy., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) 2020.)