An authentic pizza in three minutes? The reaction from Italy's pizzaioli today was as scorching as the temperature of the wood-fired ovens in which they make their venerated dish.

Claudio Torghele, who has invented the "Let's Pizza" machine, claims that it can make a pizza by beating flour and water into a dough, stretching the dough into the classic round shape and then adding tomato sauce and toppings to choice - cheese and tomato, vegetables, ham or bacon - before baking it in an infrared oven and finally sliding the finished product into the hands of the customer, all for a modest €3.50 (£3.25). That's half the price of eating one in the average Italian pizzeria.

Mr Torghele, 56, from Rovereto, near Trento in mountainous northern Italy, says that the machine has windows so that customers can follow the three-minute progress of their pizza by peering in. He came up with the idea while working in California a decade ago. "At food courts I saw a trend toward vending machines," he said. "In fast food, I saw pizza everywhere."

Backed by a Dutch investment company, he developed his "instant pizza" vending machine, due to come on to the market in Italy in the summer.

Pino Morelli, head of the Association of Italian Pizzerias, said: "Something that comes out of an automatic machine has nothing to do with Italian pizza. It might be alright for McDonalds and other fast-food chains or for foreign markets like the US, China and India but anyone wanting to eat a real pizza has to go to a traditional pizzeria''.

"The craft of the pizza-maker has been rediscovered, and the number of people wanting to learn the art of the pizza is growing," Mr Morelli told ANSA. "It's a reliable and well-paid craft."

He said that the number of aspiring pizzaioli on officially approved pizza-making courses had risen by a quarter over the past year, with graduates going on to practise their skills not only in Italy but in countries such as Australia, where they could earn the equivalent of €7,000 a month.

Mr Morelli said that real pizza-makers ''certainly do not fear competition from any machine" but the invention could damage Italy's image as the home of Mediterranean cuisine. "The pizza is the symbol of the 'Made in Italy' brand and we should let it live and prosper in peace", he said.

The exact origins of pizza are hotly debated but it clearly derives from the flatbreads that have been common throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East from ancient times. Examples include focaccia in Italy and pitta bread in Greece and Turkey.

The invention of Italian pizza is claimed by Naples, where people began putting tomato and cheese on flatbreads in the 18th century. The classic versions remain the marinara with a topping of tomato, oregano, garlic, and olive oil, as eaten by Neapolitan fishermen (the name has nothing to do with seafood), and the margherita, invented in 1889 at "Pizzeria Brandi" for Queen Margherita of Savoy, with the three colours of the tricolore: green (basil), white (mozzarella) and red (tomatoes).

According to official rules, a pizza must be hand-kneaded and then baked in a wood-fired oven for no more than a minute and a half. Exotic pizza toppings of the kind often found in Britain or the United States are regarded in Italy with distaste bordering on horror.

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