The best general survey of Europe in 1848 is Jonathan Sperber's The European Revolutions 1848-1851 and the anthology edited by Dieter Dowe et al, Europe in 1848 is a doorstopper of a book (ca. 900 pages), but covers the revolutions' many facets. Unfortunately, the Italian 1848 often gets wrapped up into the wider events of the Risorgimento. Clara Lovett's The Democratic Movement in Italy, 1830-1876 covers some aspects of 1848, as does the relevant portions of Denis Mack Smith's biography Mazzini. Events in northern Italy are covered in Francis Joseph and the Italians, 1849-59 by William Jenks. But again, the Italian 1848 revolutions are not really treated as an organic whole in the English-language historiography.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of any novels about 1848. There is an interesting East German film, Und Wieder 48! that mixes contemporary Germany and the 48ers around the centennial of the revolutions.