Can you double-check those numbers? I don't know of any 38 mm standards, but Italian would be 36 mm x 24 tpi. It would also be 70 mm across the bottom bracket shell instead of the 68 mm shell width used by most other threaded bottom bracket types. If you were to post the make of the frame and approximate age, we could also take a guess as to what BB standard it might use.

If it is Italian, you'd turn the drive-side cup counter-clockwise to loosen it. Same with French (35 mm x 1 mm thread pitch). Others -- British/ISO, Raleigh, Swiss -- would be clockwise to loosen.