Does the short route apply here? No
The first thing to settle is whether the quick route applies at all, and here it does not. Cameroon does not recognise the apostille. A file bound that way has to be legalised the long way, at a consulate, once an Italian office has already put its own mark on the page.
This matters because most guides written for travel inside Europe assume the opposite. They tell you to walk into one office, pay a small duty, and leave with the job finished. For this corridor that advice is simply wrong, and following it can burn a month you did not have to spare.
If you have already paid for an apostille from Italy to Cameroon, do not bin it, but do not lean on it either. Ask the consulate whether it wants the sheet inside the bundle or left out of it. Some counters ignore the extra page; a few object to finding it there.
Who stamps what in Verona
Two Italian offices share this work and you need the right one first time. Papers that come out of a town hall, a registry or a school are dealt with by the Prefettura (Prefecture) in Verona. Papers that come out of a courtroom, or that a notary drew up and signed, are dealt with by the Procura della Repubblica.
Neither office reads your paper for its content. Each confirms one narrow thing: that the signature on the page belongs to the official it claims to, and that a matching specimen sits in their records. Once satisfied, the clerk signs underneath and adds a seal. That is the whole Italian leg, start to finish.
The consular leg, which decides everything
The second leg is the one that actually makes your paper usable abroad. Document legalisation for Cameroon is granted by the consulate covering your part of Italy, and only once the Italian mark is already on the page. Work out which consulate covers Veneto before you plan any journey to a counter.
Write first, and keep the questions short. Which papers do you seal? Which language must the text be in? What is the charge, and how is it paid? Nothing on a website beats an answer signed by the counter that will open your envelope, so save the reply and print a copy.
Do not expect an Italian office to guide you through this half. Because no Italian body may issue an apostille for Cameroon, nobody at the Prefettura can tell you what a consulate will accept either. They are separate systems with separate rules, and the consular answer is the one that decides your file.
Budget on one page, timetable on another
Set aside two sums. The Italian mark carries duty of €16 per document, and a number of records are exempt from it, so ask before you buy the stamp. The consular charge is fixed abroad, is published by nobody in Italy, and can be revised, so confirm it close to the day you intend to pay.
Readers who look up apostille requirements for Cameroon usually come away with timings rather than rules. Ignore the timings. Ask the consulate how long it is holding files this month. Put the same question to the Italian office, then add a fortnight on top before you promise a date to anyone.