Childhood in Italy during Easter festivities holds very special memories for me. The aroma of casatielli and pastiere wafting through the streets. The markets blooming with colourful produce. The city’s pace accelerating, readying itself for Easter. And the Sunday mass becoming a field covered in bright flowers of the new season’s fashion. Easter in Naples is a religious, cultural and seasonal macramé announcing spring: fertility and abundance. What better way to wish all of my readers a joyful Easter, but through an Italian perspective!?

Let us rejoice the most important Christian holiday by celebrating life and new beginnings to the tune of Vivaldi’s “Spring” concerto, Botticelli’s “Primavera” painting and d’ Annunzio’s “Pioggia nel Pineto”, a poem which romanticises the cleansing and transfiguration of men into the natural. Let’s indulge our souls and our eyes this Easter through the union of Western art and Christianity.