The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word FOCCACIA
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
F
O
C
C
A
C
I
A
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "type of Italian bread" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case type of italian bread = foccacia.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.