GIORGIA MELONI BECOMES FIRST FEMALE PRIME MINISTER

He was a wonderful person", she remembers, "and in love with his granddaughter."

With that little girl, Giorgia Meloni, having led her party to first place in the election, Anna Maria swells with pride. "I brought her up on my beans! She ate well, and she grew up well."

The market is in Garbatella, a working-class southern neighbourhood of Rome and traditionally a bastion of the left.

It's an incongruous origin for a politician now in pole position to become Italy's first far-right prime minister since Benito Mussolini. Once the results of Italy's snap election are confirmed, the country's president, Sergio Mattarella will consult party leaders to determine who can lead a stable government. Ms Meloni, as the front-runner, will argue she has first refusal.

"She's not representative of this area, which is historically red," says Marta, a shopper pushing her pram past the vegetable stalls. Her elderly mother, Luciana, tells me she's scared of the prospect. "I'm profoundly anti-fascist," she adds. "If she gets in, it will be a very ugly period."