your Italian language textbook warns you that:

I verbi che hanno il passato remoto irregolare sono moltissimi: quasi tutti i verbi di uso comune. I verbi irregolari sono quasi tutti della II coniugazione in -ERE.  E’ molto difficile dare delle regole per classificare i verbi irregolari che si possono imparare solo con la pratica.  Molte grammatiche cercano inutilmente di riunirli in moltissimi gruppi.  Noi ci limitiamo a QUATTRO GRUPPI.

Roughly translated, that says:

The verbs that are irregular in the past remote are many (the most): almost all of the verbs commonly used.  The irregular verbs are almost all in the type 2 conjugation, that is, those ending in ERE.  It is very difficult to give the rules of classification for the irregular verbs which you can really only learn with practice.  Many grammatical errors are found in this pesky group.  We will limit our studies to 4 groups.

 

OMG, when the book says, good luck, it’s too complicated: I know I’m in bigissimo trouble!!

So, go ahead and memorize this short list of irregular verbs and their sometimes stems in an afternoon.

 

In bocca al lupo!