Consider the pizza di Pasqua (dough with liquor, chocolate, cheese, +20cm tall), pizza alla pala (1.5m long), pizza sbattuta (sponge cake), pizza in teglia (rectangular and cut in square slices), and many more.

Could be related to pita, and I would not argue every culture on earth made flat round dough and put stuff on it, but it's a very large family.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_di_Pasqua

https://www.tasteatlas.com/pizza-alla-pala

https://blog.giallozafferano.it/inventaricette/pizza-sbattut...

True, although the canonical/widespread pizza is the round/flat one.

I've never heard of "Pizza di Pasqua" and "Pizza sbattuta" in Italy (I don't doubt they exist, but they must be very uncommon).

Pizza in teglia is common, at least in certain parts of Italy; I believe it's generally sold in bakeries rather than in pizzerias (restaurants).

Pizza alla pala is not so common in Italy, at least in restaurants (not that I remember). In other countries is very common in takeaways.

There's also a type of pizza that is round but thick, and with lower-quality toppings. I can't find any reference to it; it's somewhat widespread over Italy, but considered a "lesser pizza" :)

Funny, in Romanian, Pasqua(spelled Pasca) is a sweet bread Easter dish.

do you mean 'pizzetta'?

I've found this type of pizza both in the north and in the south. The overall quality is consideraly lower, starting from the cheese, which is not mozzarella (I believe they use provola, which is cheaper).

I agree, but I would also posit that the modern canonical definition of a pizza has less historical significance than the fact that when people pounded dough in the past it happened to turn out kind of round.

He mentions two other pizze: "Pizza a libretti" and "Pizza gravida", both of them sweet. "Our" pizza is completely absent.

Although I guess fry dough is basically dessert pizza if you think about it.

But in some families/bakeries it is done with Strega liquor or Alchermes liquor[0], and it's also good. It's only the one with chocolate bits[1], which I find heretical since you can't eat it with salty stuff :D

[0] like this https://blog.giallozafferano.it/dolcissimamentez/pizza-di-pa...

[1] https://www.ricettedellanonna.net/pizza-di-pasqua/

In certain regions of Southern Italy, the word 'pizza' also refers to a part of the male anatomy which is not flat.

frankly speaking, I don't think we can find the true origin of this dish, it's like looking for the inventor of the wheel or the three-year rotation

either way, the history of modern pizza in northern Italy is truly fascinating (and controversial)[1]

[1] https://www.vanillamagazine.it/le-pizzerie-furono-sconosciut...

A thing as basic as a bread staple to have different names in the same region seems very significant.

Does anyone have any insight into this? I'm definitely going to try to dig deeper.

I used to go to a "pizza" restaurant in Jaffa. It claimed to be the oldest pizza restaurant. It has high lip edges and eggs... I think it was like shakuka on a type of pita. I wish I could remember what they called it.

Nah. It's just the result of a long history. In Italy, different towns can call the same specialties with completely different names (crescentina / gnocco fritto, etc...), often simply out of spite or because of some long-forgotten feud.

40 years ago, in Rome a pizza was often called a "torta", which is the word the rest of Italy uses for sweet cakes.

Pita is a pretty basic word for a human staple. Large regional areas use a very similar word for millenniums. One culture doesn't and is just as interspersed as through time and space as the others.

In fact they share many texts.

I think this is different than the examples you provided.

I would describe some pizza's in Berkshire Country as a Torte.