Two words in English that I can think of that are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on their tense are lead and read.

There is also a different pronunciation depending on the meaning of the word such as wind.

The wind winds it's way through the canyon.

And isn't it funny that wind winds but winds wind.

English can be so confusing!

Are there any words in Italian that are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on their use?

Offhand I can think of capitano (captain or they happen) and ancora (still or anchor). Those are syllable stresses: then there's the subtle difference of open or closed vowels: pésca (fishing) or pèsca (peach).

Good ones Andrew!
It may worth clarifying that the difference resides in the accented syllable.
capitAno= captain
cApitano= they happen

Ancora=anchor
ancOra=still

Can't think of more but I'm pretty sure they exist.

I've also thought of:

sUbito = right away
subIto = suffered, as a transitive verb, as in: L'Italia ha subito una sconfitta = Italy suffered a defeat (talking about the soccer team).

There's pAnico, meaning panic, and a Via del PanIco in Rome; I'm not sure of the origin of that.

panIco (Panicum italicum L.) is a cereal, according to my dictionary, it's called "foxtail millett"...

You may have noticed that in the printed word - books newspapers etc, if the author thinks that in the context the pronunciation might be ambiguous, then the accent is written (printed) explicitly.

This is what came to my mind:

prìncipi= princes
princìpi= principles; rudiments

but I am pretty sure there are many more!

quote:

You may have noticed that in the printed word - books newspapers etc, if the author thinks that in the context the pronunciation might be ambiguous, then the accent is written (printed) explicitly.

Likewise, with place names, the TCI maps include accent marks to help with the correct pronunciation. I've found them very helpful.

Panìco is that type of seed that you feed to canaries.

Not spelled exactly the same, but: at an American university, a guest speaker who was not Italian gave a lecture in Italian involving Martin Luther, who in Italian is known as LutEro. This speaker kept calling him LUtero; that pronunciation comes across as l'utero, or the uterus.

Two words that come to mind are "caSIno" and "CAsino." A true faux pas (if I many use French) to mix them up, because you go to one to gamble and to the other to gamble on not getting an STD. Unfortunately, I don't remember which is which. There is also a chain of stores in France, and I don't remember which pronunciation they use.

You have got this slightly wrong. It is as follows in italian:
casIno brothel
casinO (written casinò) gambling casino

This thread was great! I was able to learn a number of new words and it was easy because O already new one form of the word.

But I got to thinking, none of the words are really pronounced differently. At least not like English words like read and wind. They just have a are different on what syllable is stressed.

Are there any words in Italian that are spelled the same but have their syllables pronounced differently? In English these types of words seem to be single syllable. I can't think of any that have more than one syllable.

In English, I can think of minute, involving both vowels and syllable stress.

In Italian, when a word is written, generally the only uncertainty is which syllable is stressed. Vowels are pronounced the same with the subtle difference of open or closed e or o, as in the pésca/pèsca difference I gave; that's a distinction that I think is mainly made in central Italy and less noticed in other areas.

In Italian, since you read what you write there's no possibility of writing the same and pronouncing something different except for the accent issue...
Sorry Andrew... I didn't see your reply...
In my experience the difference between pésca and pèsca is made by less than 5% of the italian population, the rest (including me when I'm not paying serious attention at my pronunciation) will pronounce the E like an è or é depending on where they come from.