Growing up in her native Cernusco sul Naviglio, in the province of Milan, where she started playing minis rugby, Arrighetti then moved on to nearby Monza. There, she won a championship title, before upping stick and joining French side Rennes in 2016.
"I was very happy to be able to rejoin the group in Dublin, it was very emotional," says the back rower. "I cried a lot and I knew that would happen. On the field I had positive feelings, I didn't think much about the knee injury or anything else. I just wanted to enjoy the moment with my teammates."
At the RDS Arena in round two of the Guinness Women's Six Nations, she even went close to scoring, but play was called back due to a forward pass in the build-up. Normally. a flanker, Arrighetti wore the number eight jersey in the absence of Elisa Giordano - a sign of Arrighetti's adaptability. Even if she doesn't start in Paris on Sunday, you can be sure she'll have a role to play.
In front of a partisan home crowd at the Stade Jean Bouin, the home of Stade Francais, she could come up against the might of back rower Romane Menager - one of France's standout players in an otherwise stop-start campaign for Les Bleues.
"France is a team that is finding itself again and it shows a bit," suggests Arrighetti. "The result against Scotland was in the balance almost until the last minute and we know that's certainly not a normal situation for France. There are a lot of new and very young girls, and that's an approach we've also seen in the men's XV - to have a lot of youngsters playing - but if they are not well guided it can become difficult. I hope for them that they will find a balance - but maybe after this weekend."
Unsurprisingly, given the countries' shared border, several of Italy's players play their club rugby in France. In addition to Arrighetti at Rennes, Valeria Fedrighi is with Toulouse, Veronica Madia with the Grenoble Amazones, while Gaia Maris and Francesca Sgorbini are at ASM Romagnat Rugby (the women's section of Clermont Auvergne, where Sara Tounesi played before moving to Sale).
"I think some of my clubmates will be at the match," she says, "but I've also told them they will have to deal with me if they wear the France jersey. I will try to give them some Italy jerseys instead."
Undoubtedly, for one who has lived and worked as an Italian teacher in Brittany for eight years, facing France is a challenge like no other.
"It is a match that feels very much like a derby," is Arrighetti's take on the fixture. "The last time was in the World Cup, when we lost in the quarter-finals and I had to watch it from the stands, so it still stings a little - as does not having been able to play it.
"When you win it always leaves you with a good feeling, because as long as you don't meet them again as opponents, you can brag and joke about it. The last time, when I was still playing with Melissa Bettoni, they had to ask us to stop. Once we do it, we do it well."
Granted, Italy themselves are in a rebuilding phase, points out Arrighetti. "We've got a good mix and we're also in a renewal phase, like all teams after the World Cup, when there is always a cycle that starts again and many things change.
"Fortunately we are not doing it from scratch, because the new girls have shown that they are willing to work. We just need to embed them more to make sure that out of those the individual talents comes a team."
And in that sense, winning can only help, as happened a fortnight ago in Ireland.
"It was good, especially given the way we started: we couldn't get out of our 22 because of Ireland's suffocating attack. But then, together, we managed to turn the situation around by being pragmatic. We didn't attack so much, but we managed to take advantage of the opportunities we had."
It's to the benefit of the Championship that all the teams are playing well, suggests Arrighetti. "Look at the progress made by Wales or Scotland, who managed to make life difficult for France for almost the entire match. It shows that even teams that might once have been considered second-tier, are now all on an upwards trajectory."
France v Italy kicks off this Sunday at 12:30 BST, live on BBC.
