The Easter Colomba: origins and legends

Among Easter sweets, few have the symbolic power of the unmistakable colomba, whose dove shape is a symbol of peace and love.

According to tradition, the Easter colomba is a Lombard cake, and that is where all the legends about it are set.

The origin of the colomba seems to date back to Lombard times, when King Alboin, during the siege of Pavia – which lasted about three years and ended just before Easter – received from the local people a sweet bread shaped like a dove as a sign of peace.

According to another tale, also from the Lombard tradition, the cake was first made by Saint Columbanus. This holy man arrived at the court of the Lombard rulers, who invited him to a lavish banquet. The queen offered her guests game and rich drinks, but the saint declined because it was Lent. Theodelinda and her husband Agilulf took the refusal as a personal insult, and it was then that Columbanus, blessing the game, turned it into white doves of bread.

But the invention and marketing of the Easter colomba as we know it today came about around 1930, from an idea by the advertising man Dino Villani – who also created the competition that would later become Miss Italia – who worked for a well-known Milanese confectionery company.

Why not use the same machinery the company used to make panettone to create a new Easter cake with a very similar recipe? And so the Easter colomba was born.

The innovation lay in its shape (a dove, long a symbol of Easter) and its top covered with amaretto glaze and almonds.

Needless to say, it was a success!