"Up until 1999, a thesis of original research was required of every student pursuing the Italian equivalent of a bachelor’s degree." Outstanding.
That's why a bachelor is historically called a doctor in Italy and also why the standards where so high on something that was at the time the highest degree attainable.
Another interesting effect is that while most of the _laurea_ were 4-5 years long (in terms of coursework), sometimes the thesis could take over one year to complete on top of that.
The current Italian model (adopted in 1999 with the Bologna process) splits the old 4-year degree in a 3+2 years, which is more similar to the US Bachelor's+Master's degree path.
How else would you finish?
I think the reasoning was, that 2 semesters that it took to write is too little time to conduct any original research, and that showcasing ability to write a comprehensive scientific text and process current scientific papers is enough to varrant a bachelors thesis.
Master thesis had to have original research.
Maybe there are more differences between Denmark and Czech higher education.
For example, do you have just a thesis defense, or do you need to pass some sort of state examination as well?
I remember, that a fried of mine was contrasting mostly four week blocks of intense study on single topic in Denmark with for Czech more standard semester with 5-10 classes, each 1-5 hours a week.
Please post a source for this. Maybe your DK bachelor thesis had original research in it, mine surely did not, and I do not believe it is a requirement.