Alongside the gossip and the gallows humor, the ancient and solemn rituals continue,” Chiara Barzini writes from Italy.

Fiorello Maffei, a 58-year-old who lives in London, returned to Italy for the now postponed canonisation of Carlo, a Londoner himself born to Italian parents who died of leukaemia at the age of 15. Maffei said he had found Francis’s funeral “very touching” and full of simple words and messages of love that still “carried great weight”.