As cardinals prepare to enter the Sistine Chapel in a few days to elect a new pope, they are engaged in intense discussions over plates of carbonara and bottles of wine in the Borgo, the village-like quarter of cobbled lanes, tiny piazzas and ornate fountains that lies a few yards from the walls of the Vatican City State.

One is partial to grilled calamari, another cannot resist spaghetti with seafood and a third confesses to a weakness for gelato. Think of them as “gnocchi negotiations”; perhaps “tagliatelle talks”. Cardinals from around the world are lunching and dining each other in discreet corners as they discuss the legacy of Pope Francis.