In many countries Easter means chocolate. Bags of pastel-coloured mini eggs, tin-foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies and the classic hollow egg, ready to be smashed to pieces. These cocoa-based confections are available in Italy – though not in the same aisle-filling quantity – but chocolate simply isn’t the go-to Easter treat it is in other parts of the world.

Not when these traditional, and often regional, dolci start to appear on the shelves of pasticcerie around the country. Colomba: Supposedly shaped like a dove – though, in reality, with a more blob-like form – colomba is an enriched sweet bread very similar to panettone.