Let’s study a detail of this portrait of an unknown Italian officer. On his right sleeve, this man wears what seems to be two bars, each of them being awarded for men who were wounded in war.
The size, the shape and the color are the right ones, the only wrong element may be the distance between the two bars, which should be 2 cm, according to the circolare n. 182 published in 1917 (see below). But I’ve seen other pictures were bars were placed one just below the other.
Some WW1 Photographs... 
I would think civilians would recognize this kind of uniform badge and perhaps the separation was to make it more distinctive.