Ramerino is the Tuscan word for rosemary. Pan di ramerino is therefore rosemary bread, and in Florence, it means one thing: small rounds studded with raisins and fragrant with the piney herb that grows wild on every Tuscan hillside. This is Easter bread, made on Giovedì Santo, Holy Thursday, when Florentine bakers would mark each bun with a cross before sliding them into wood-fired ovens.

The bread is enriched with olive oil, not butter. This is Tuscany, where olive trees outnumber dairy cows and the golden-green oil finds its way into everything. The raisins are soaked in vin santo, the amber dessert wine that every Tuscan household keeps for dipping biscotti. The rosemary is fresh, never dried, chopped fine so it distributes evenly through the soft crumb.

You will notice these buns are slightly sweet but not cloying. They sit at the threshold between bread and pastry, appropriate for a holy day that calls for something special but not frivolous. Florentines eat them plain, perhaps with a glass of the same vin santo that flavors the raisins. The combination is correct and needs nothing more.