References
“May God curse you, Sancho,” Don Quixote said at that point.
“May sixty thousand devils take you and your proverbs away!”

Chapter 1. A Proverb to Decipher

Listings of the proverb in some recent anthologies and dictionaries: I detti del mangiare: 1738 proverbi segnalati da 1853 medici commentati in chiave nutrizionale da Bruna Lancia, ed. L. Antoniazzi and L. Citti (Milan: Editemme, 1988), p. 22. (The proverb is listed as nos. 7, 94, and 1225 in the Abruzzese, Calabrese, and Tuscan regional variants.)
P. Guazzotti and M. F. Oddera, Il grande dizionario dei proverbi italiani (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2006), p. 37; C. Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani (Milan: Mondadori, 2007), C 2101, p. 358.
For the other citations: G. Pontiggia, preface to Scrittori italiani di aforismi , ed. G. Ruozzi (Milan: Mondadori, 1994), p. 27; M. Camille, Image on the Edge: Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 36; P. Camporesi, “La formazione e la trasmissione del sapere nelle società pastorali e contadine,” Estudis d’historia agrària V (1985), pp. 77–89; T. Scully, “Comme lard es pois: Middle-French Proverbs with Reference to Food,” Petits Propos Culinaires 82 (2006), pp. 17–35 (on p. 17 of which I provide the list of proverbs).
The quotation from Erasmus is taken from N. Zemon Davis, Le culture del popolo. Sapere, rituali e resistenze nella Francia del Cinquecento (Turin: Einaudi, 1980), p. 316.

Chapter 2. A Wedding Announcement

Notice of the curious twinning is taken from www.freshplaza.it/news(26/11/2007).
On Roman culinary customs, see F. Dupont, “Grammatica dell’alimentazione e dei pasti romani,” in Storia dell’alimentazione, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari (Rome: Laterza, 1997), p. 157; A. Dosi and F. Schnell, A tavola con i romani antichi (Rome: Quasar, 1984), p. 63.
The thirteenth-century French proverb is in J. Morawski, Proverbes français antérieurs au XV siècle, n. 1443 (Paris: Champion, 1925). It is also cited by J.-L. Flandrin, Alimentation et médecine, Histoire de l’alimentation occidentale: diététiques ancienne et formation du goût. Proverbes diététiques, n. 3 (see article on www.mangeur-ocha.com). For its continuation today, see G. Cosson, Inventaire des dictons des terroirs de France (Paris: Larousse, 2006), p. 146. An abbreviated form (La poire avec le fromage, c’est mariage) is in the nineteenth-century anthology by A. Chesnel and J.-P. Migne, Dictionnaire de la sagesse populaire, recueil moral d’apophthegmes, axiomes, etc. (1855), p. 803 n. 109.
On the influence of Galenic medicine on gastronomic choices and order of service, see A. Capatti and M. Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura (Rome: Laterza, 1999), pp. 145 ff. (Il cuoco galenico). The medieval and Renaissance system of “simultaneous” service ended in Europe only in the nineteenth century with the establishment of the “Russian-style service” currently in practice, in which “all dishes are presented to each individual guest in a pre-determined succession” (ibid., p. 171).
On Platina and the culture of his time, see B. Laurioux, Gastronomie, humanisme et société à Rome au milieu du XVe siècle. Autour de “De honesta voluptate” de Platina (Florence: Sismel/Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2006). The citation is from De honesta voluptate et valetudine, which I use in its Italian translation: B. Platina, Il Piacere onesto e la buona salute, ed. E. Faccioli (Turin: Einaudi, 1985, p. 51). For the aphorism from the Salerno school: Regimen Sanitatis, Flos medicinae Scholae Salerni, ed. A. Sinno (Milan: Mursia, 1987), I, IX, 8, p. 122: “si post sumatur, terminet ille dapes” (if one eats cheese after other foods, the meal can be considered ended). For the proverbs resulting from the medieval “rule,” I have quoted from V. Boggione and L. Massobrio, Dizionario dei proverbi. I proverbi italiani organizzati per temi (Turin: Utet, 2004), V.1.7.8.21–22. Other examples are in C. Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani, F 1081: “Non si alza da tavola se la bocca non sa di formaggio” (One does not rise from the table without the taste of cheese in the mouth); P 2439: “Il pranzo non vale un’acca se non finisce col gusto di vacca” (the meal is not worth a damn if it does not end with the taste of cow); P 1440: “La bocca non è stracca se non sa di vacca” (the mouth is not sated if it does not taste of cow); Antoniazzi and Citti, I detti del mangiare, 375 (Friuli), 611 (Lombardy), 790 (Piedmont). It should be noted that at least in one case cheese is paired with fruit: “Da teula n’t’alver mai sa le to boca la ‘n sa ed fruta o ‘d furmaj” (Do not rise from the table if your mouth does not taste of fruit or cheese), Emilian proverb, ibid, 309.
J.-L. Flandrin has studied in depth the relationship in varying circumstances between proverbs and premodern dietetics: in particular, see “Condimenti, cucina e dietetica tra XIV e XVI secolo,” in Storia dell’alimentazione, pp. 392–394, on diet and oral culture.
For the quotation from Aldobrandino, see Aldebrandin de Sienne, Le régime du corps, ed. L. Landouzy and R. Pépin (Paris: Champion, 1911; Geneva: Slatkine, 1978), p. 147: “Sachiez que toutes poires estraignent le ventrail devant mangier, et apriès mangier l’alaschent; por ce qu’eles sont pesans, si font le viande avaler.” Translation in text.
The text by Romoli is quoted in Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin: Utet, 1961), “Pera.”
The two Spanish texts quoted are J. Sorapàn de Rieros, Medicina española contenida en proverbios vulgares de nuestra lengua (Granada, 1616), 1, p. 250 (cf. J. Cruz Cruz, Dietetica medieval [Huesca: La Val de Onera, 1997], p. 215); A. Ferrer de Valdecebro, Il perché di tutte le cose, ed. A. Bernat Vistarini and J. T. Cull (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2005), question 278, pp. 184–187.
The French saying “Entre le fromage et la poire . . .” is quoted from LeRoux de Lincy, Le livre des proverbes français (Paris: Delahays, 1859), p. 198; A. Callot, Nouveau dictionnaire proverbial, satirique et burlesque, plus complet que ceux qui ont paru jusqu’à ce jour, à l’usage de tout le monde (Paris, 1826), p. 325: “This expression signifies the end of the meal when everybody starts to feel cheerful and in a mood to laugh”; D’Hautel, Dictionnaire du cas langage ou des manières de parler usitées parmi les peuples (Paris: Haussmann, 1808): “Entre la poire et le fromage on parle de mariage” (Between the pear and the cheese one speaks of marriage, meaning at that moment one is disposed to gaiety); Dictionnaire des proverbes français et des façons de parler comiques, burlesques et familières avec l’explication et les étymologies les plus avérées (Paris, 1758), p. 279.
The quotation from Michelangelo Buonarroti is in Opere varie (Florence: Le Monnier, 1863), p. 380.
For the quote from Petrarch, see Disperse e attribuite, ed. A. Solerti (Florence: Sansoni), 1909, a. 1374, 213, v. 120.
For the poetry of Pietro Cantarini, see Le poesie sulla natura delle frutta e i canterini di Firenze in Attraveso il Medioevo. Studi e ricerche, ed. F. Novati (Bari: Laterza, 1905), pp. 332–335 (the quotation is on p. 333; the italics are mine).
G. Nigro, Gli uomini dell’Irco. Indagine sui consumi di carne nel basso Medioevo. Prato alla fine del ’300 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1983), pp. 167 ff., for the dates of the hotel in Prato.
The notice about the Visconti is in P. C. Decembrio, Vita di Filippo Maria Visconti, ed. E. Bartolini (Milan: Adelphi, 1983), LII, pp. 100–101.
The appetite of Morgante and Margutte appears in L. Pulci, Morgante, cantare 18, 155, ed. P. Sarrazin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001).
For the Capitolo del bacio by Giovanni Della Casa and the Capitolo sopra la salsiccia by Girolamo Ruscelli, see respectively Il primo libro delle opere burlesche (pp. 141–142) and Il secondo libro delle opere burlesche (pp. 112–116) (Usecht al Reno: Broedelet, 1771), reprinted from the edition by Domenico Giglio (Venice, 1564–66).
The two quotations by A. F. Grazzini are taken from La Pinzochera, act 2, scene 5, in Opere, vol. 2: Commedie, ed. P. Fanfani (Florence: LeMonnier, 1859), pp. 306, 248.
The letter by Francesco de la Arme is quoted by G. Malacarne, Sulla mensa del principe. Alimentazione e banchetti alla Corte dei Gonzaga (Modena: Il Bulino, 2000), p. 186.
For the text by Oviedo: Sommario della naturale e generale istoria dell’Indie occidentali di Gonzalo Ferdinando d’Oviedo, in G. B. Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, ed. M. Milanesi, (Turin: Einaudi, 1985), V, pp. 300–301.
On the centrality of the notion of “the status of foodstuffs” in J.-L. Flandrin’s historiographic observation, see M. Montanari, “Un historien gourmand,” in Le désir et le goût. Une autre histoire (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles), ed. O. Redon, L. Sallmann, and S. Steinberg (Saint-Dénis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2005), pp. 371–381 and pp. 375–378.

Chapter 3. Peasant Fare

Homer, Odyssey, IX, 187 ff, in the Italian translation by M. G. Ciani (Venice: Marsilio, 1994), pp. 305–307.
P. Camporesi writes about “hippomolgói ” in “Il formaggio maladetto,” in Le Officine dei sensi (Milan: Garzanti, 1985), p. 59.
On food images of the “barbarity” during the early Middle Ages, see M. Montanari, La fame e l’abbondanza. Storia dell’alimentazione (English translation: The Culture of Food [Boston: Wiley, 1996]), pp. 9–10, for the ideological opposition between nature and culture.
The quotation by Pliny the Elder comes from Storia naturale, XI, 239, ed. G. B. Conte, (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), II, p. 658: “Mirum barbaras gentes, quae lacte vivant, ignorare aut spernere tot saeculis casei dotem.” The one by Columella comes from L’arte dell’agricultura, ed. C. Carena (Turin: Einaudi, 1977), VII, 2, 1, p. 498: “casei lactisque abundantia non solum agrestit satirat, sed etiam elegantium mensas iucundis et numerosis dapibus exornat.”
See Apicius’s treatise in the edition by J. André: Apicius, l’art culinaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1974).
For the bread and cheese of the Brescian peasants: Le carte del monastero dei santi Cosima e Damiano (Brescia) 1127–1275, ed. P. Merati (Brescia: Fondazione Civiltà Bresciana, 2005) n. 2, p. 66; n. 30, p. 68; n. 31, p.71; n. 39, p. 86; n. 42, p. 89; n. 58, p. 132, n. 96, p. 199; n. 155, p. 299. For the distribution of bread and meat: n. 72, p. 156.
The prejudices of medical science regarding the healthfulness of cheese are examined in M. Nicoud, “Aux origines d’une médecine préventive: les traités diététique en Italie et en France (XIII–XVe siècles),” doctoral thesis, 3 vols., École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris 1998, IV section, 1, pp. 320–321. See also P. Camporesi, Il formaggio maledetto, 52 ff.
On the cliché from the Salerno school that recommends caution in the consumption of cheese: Regimen sanitatis. Flos medicinae Scholae Salerni, I, IX, 8:14, p. 122. See I. Naso, Formaggio del Medioevo. La “Summa lacticiniorum” di Pantaleone da Confienza (Turin: Il Segnalibro, 1990), p. 72. For listings of proverbs: E. Strauss, Dictionary of European Proverbs, (New York: Routledge, 1994), n. 1456; C. Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani (Milan: Mondadori, 2007), F 1074: “Ogni formaggio è sano dato da avara mano”; Boggione and Massobrio, Dizionario dei proverbi, v. 1.7.8.18.1: “Il formaggio è sano se vien da avara mano”; LeRoux de Lincy, Le livre des proverbes français (Paris: Delahays, 1859), p. 198; Sebastiàn de Horozco (1510–1580), Teatro universal de proverbios, ed. J. L. Alonso Hernandez (Salamanca, 1986), n. 1027. The quotation by B. Pisanelli is in Trattato della natura de’ cibi e del bere (Carmagnola: Bellone, 1589), p. 45.
I quoted the interpretation of C. M. Counihan, Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family, and Gender in Twentieth-century Florence (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 41: “The peasants produced and ate little cheese—a fact recognized in the popular Florentine proverb.... The proverb also hinted at the age-old struggle between landlords and peasants over the allocation of resources, and the economic truth that peasants had access only to cheap foods that fueled their bodies for work, not high fat foods like cheese, because they owed these to landlords or sold them.” Everything that we have seen (and will see in the next chapter) demonstrates the contrary: cheese could be enjoyed by many, but was considered primarily a peasant food, perfectly suited to nourishing the body “for work.” In the same vein as Counihan, though less explicit, is the comment by P. Guazzotti and M. F. Oddera, Il grande dizionario dei proverbi italiani (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2006), p. 37: “If the peasant has to be satisfied with poor, basic foods, it is better that he not know how good the more refined are. In the countryside, in fact, peasants had to give the better products to the landlords” (on the assumption that both pears and cheese are particularly “refined” foods).

Chapter 4. When Rustic Food Becomes the Fashion

For the monastic model, see M. Montanari, Alimentazione e cultura nel Medioevo (Rome: Laterza, 1988), pp. 63 ff. For the quotation from L. Moulin, see La vita quotidiana dei monaci nel Medioevo (Milan: Mondadori, 1988), p. 70. On the position of dairy products in the meat-free diet, see E. Vacandard, Carême (Jeûne du), in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, c. 1742; see also A. Capatti and M. Montanari, La cucina italiana. Storia di una cultura (Rome: Laterza, 1999), p. 82.
The analyses of B. Laurioux on the role of cheese in medieval European cookbooks appear in the essay “Du bréhémont et d’autres fromages renommés au XVe siècle,” in Scrivere il Medioevo. Lo spazio, la sanità, il cibo. Un libro dedicato a Odile Redon, ed. B. Larioux and L. Moulinier-Brogi (Rome: Viella, 2001), pp. 331–332. On p. 332, the “mediterraneity” of the taste for cheese is suggested.
The recipe for cheese on a spit is in Il libro della cucina del sec. XIV, ed. F. Zambrini (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1863), pp. 66–67.
For the relationship between the diffusion of pasta and the success of cheese, see A. Capatti and M. Montanari, La cucina italiana, pp. 63–64. The quotation from Boccaccio obviously comes from the Decameron, v. III, 3; see M. Montanari, La fame e l’abbondanza (The Culture of Food ), p. 119.
For quotations of the text by Pantaleone da Confienza, see I. Naso, “Summa lacticiniorium,” pp. 138–141. See also p. 139 on the opinions of ancient physicians. Pantaleone quotes the work of the Jewish doctor and philosopher, Isaac, who lived in the tenth century, De dietis particularibus.
The letter by Gaspare da Verona is quoted by B. Larioux, Gastronomie, humanisme et société à Rome au milieu de XVe siècle. Autour du “De honesta voluptate” de Platina (Florence: Sismel/Edizioni del Galuzzo, 2006), p. 305. On p. 323 is the quotation from his biography of Paul II. On p. 317, Petrarch’s predilection for “poor foods”; see also E. Fenzi, “Etica, estetica e politica del cibo in Petrarca,” Quaderni d’Italia XI (2006), pp. 65–95.
The text by A. Beccadelli (Elogio de caseo, ed. A. Cinquini, 1910) is available on the Internet site “Poeti d’Italia.”
For the use of brie in Italian cookbooks, see Liber de coquina, I, 29, ed. L. Sada and V. Valente (Bari: Puglia Grafica Sud, 1995), p. 116. The quoted recipe from Libro della cucina also speaks of using “cascio di bria,” brie cheese.
For the promotion of quality cheeses in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see again B. Laurioux, Du bréhémont: in 1343 the lord of Chalencon gave a dozen cheeses from Craponne (his property) to the French chancellor who was passing through Puy (p. 323); in 1430 the municipal authorities of Tours presented bréhémont to counselors of the queen of Sicily (p. 321); the consuls of Saint-Flour offered “gleo” cheese from Alvernia as a Christmas gift to their bishop (p. 326).
For the quotations from fifteenth-century cookbooks, see C. Messisbugo, Libro nuovo nel qual s’insegna a far d’ogni sorte di vivanda (Venice: Eredi Giovanni Padovano, 1557), c. 5 (first edition, under the title Banchetti composizioni de vivande, Ferrara, 1549); B. Scappi, Opera, (Venice: Tramezzino, 1579), passim. On the importance of Scappi in the history of Italian cooking, see A. Capatti and M. Montanari, La cucina italiana, pp. 15 ff. See also p. 64 on the long-lasting custom of adding sugar and cinnamon to pasta with cheese.

Chapter 5. A Hard Road to Ennoblement

The text by E. Bentivoglio can be found in Le satire et altre rime piacevoli (Venice, 1557), c. 16r. Ample commentary in P. Camporesi, “Certosini e marzolini. L’iter casearium de Pantaleone da Confienza nell’Europa dei latticini,” in La miniera del mondo. Artieri inventori impostori (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1990), pp. 90–96.
Formaggiata di sere Stentato al serenissimo re della virtude by Giulio Landi can be found in the edition by A. Capatti (Milan: Comitato per la tutela del formaggio grana padana, 1991); the quotations in the text are on pp. 46, 51–53, 58–59, 63. After the first edition (1542), a second (1575) and a third (1601) appeared, “purged” of various obscenities and sexual allusions contained in the first, in observance of Counterreformation morality.
For the letter by Tolomei to Giulio Landi (April 7, 1545), see Delle lettere di M. Claudio Tolomei libri sette (Venice, 1547), p. 118: “For the cheese you are sending me I thank you very much, but I will thank you all the more when it has arrived, and doubtless even more when I have eaten it.”
The passages from B. Pisanelli, Trattato della natura de’ cibi e del bere (Carmagnola: Bellone, 1589), p. 45, and A. Petronio, Del viver de gli uomini, et di conservar la sanità (Rome: Domenico Basa, 1592), p. 187, are also discussed in Camporesi, “Il formaggio maledetto,” p. 68, and Camporesi, “Certosini e marzolini,” p. 89.
The quotation from Angelo Beolco (known as Il Ruzante) is from La Pastoral. La prima oratione. Una lettera giocosa, ed. G. Padoan (Padua: Antenore, 1978), p. 418.
The treatise by J. P. Lotichius, De casei nequitia (Frankfurt am Main, 1643), from which is quoted c. 5r, “ad fossores, et proletarios, rejicienda,” was followed a few years later by Tractatus de Adversatione Casei by M. Schoockius; see Tractatus de Butyro (Gröningen, 1664).
Citations from A. Gatti, Il formaggio biasmato (1635, derived from a previous manuscript not earlier than 1598), ed. F. Minonzio (Milan: Comitato per la tutela del formaggio grana padana, 1994), are at pp. 57–58, 69, 74–75.

Chapter 6. The Ideology of Difference and Strategies of Appropriation

On the ideology of difference and its alimentary implications, see M. Montanari, La fame e l’abbondanza (The Culture of Food), pp. 109–110, and M. Montanari, “Immagine del contadino e codici di comportamento alimentare,” in Per Vito Fumaglli. Terra, uomini, istituzioni medievali, ed. M. Montanari and A. Vasino (Bologna: Clueb, 2000), pp. 199–213.
The texts cited are G. Albani, De sanitatis custodia, ed. G. Carbonelli (Pinerolo: Tipografia Sociale, 1906); M. Savonarola, Libreto de tutte le cosse che se magnano. Un’opera di dietetica del sec. XV, ed. J. Nystedt (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1988); and G. C. Croce, Le sottilissime astuzie di Bertoldo. Le piacevoli e ridicolose semplicità di Bertoldo, ed. P. Camporesi (Turin: Einaudi, 1978). The death of Bertoldo is on p. 74 of the last.
The collection of proverbial sayings (with occasional commentary) compiled around the end of the sixteenth century by the Florentine Francesco Serdonati is preserved in a copy in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana of Florence (Codex Laurenziano-Mediceo-Palatino 62, four volumes). The original has been lost. A few notices in F. Brambilla Ageno, “Premessa a un repertorio di frasi proverbiali,” in Studi lessicali, ed. P. Bongrani, F. Magnani, and D. Trolli (Bologna: Clueb, 2000), p. 402 n. 6 (originally in Romance Philology XIII [1960], pp. 242–264). I will make frequent reference in the course of this book to the collection by Serdonati (to which I had access thanks to the collaboration of Francesca Pucci).
The proverb “Whoever is used to turnips . . .” is found in c. 156v of vol. 1.
Elsewhere I have already examined the “strategies of approval” with which the cuisine of elites includes and ennobles humble food: M. Montanari, “Cucina povera, cucina ricca,” Quaderni Medievali 52 (2001), pp. 95–105 (reprinted with a few changes under the title “La cucina scritta come fonte per lo studio della cucina orale,” Food and History 1, no. 1 [2003], p. 251–259). See also M. Montanari, Il cibo come cultura (Rome: Laterza, 2004; English translation, Food Is Culture [New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 41–49. See pp. 137–142 for the food/language parallelism (extensively examined in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, and semiotics).
For the recipe with brie, see the thirteenth-century Liber de coquina, I, 29, ed. L. Sada and V. Valente (Bari: Puglia Grafica Sud, 1995), p. 116.
The letter to Barbara Gonzaga is quoted in G. Malacarne, Sulla mensa del principe. Alimentazione e banchetti alla Corte dei Gonzaga (Modena: Il Bulino, 2000), p. 102.
The passage from Columella is cited in the notes to chapter 3.

Chapter 7. A High-Born Fruit

The quotation from Chrétien de Troyes is in Erec et Enide, v. 4240; see the edition with Italian translation by C. Noacco (Milan: Luni, 1999). See J. LeGoff, Il meraviglioso e il quotidiano nel’Occidente medievale (Rome: Laterza, 1983), p. 97.
On the importance of preserved food in the alimentary model of the peasantry, see M. Montanari, Il cibo come cultura (Food Is Culture), pp. 19–22.
The simile of the pear and the gentlewoman is in a text edited by E. Faral, “Des Vilains ou des XXIII manières de Vilains,” Romania XLVIII (1922), pp. 51–53, cited in H. Braet, “A thing most brutish”: The Image of the Rustic in Old French Literature,” in Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, and Representation, ed. D. Sweeney (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), p. 198.
For Rurizio’s gift, see Ruritii Epistulae II, 60 (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi, VIII, p. 349): “centum pira sublimitati vestrae, alia centum filiae meae destinare praesumpsi.” According to Emmanuelle Raga, the large number of fruits would make one think this a gift of quantity rather than quality: “this would therefore not appear to be a prestigious gift”; “La place de l’alimentation dans les rapports sociaux de l’aristocracie galloromaine. Ve–VIe siècles,” Mémoire de license en histoire médiévale, ed. Alain Dierkens (Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, 2005–6), p. 147. But the social position of the protagonists leads one to believe the contrary.
Charlemagne’s instructions on fruit trees are in Capitulare de villis, 70 (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Capitularia regum Francorum, I, n. 32, p. 90).
The “chain of being” (see A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936]) was linked to the alimentary imagination by A. J. Grieco, “The Social Order of Nature and the Natural Order of Society in Late 13th–Early 14th Century Italy,” Miscellanea Mediaevali 21, no. 2 (1992), pp. 898–907; A. J. Grieco, “Les plantes, les régimes végétariens et la mélancholie à la fin du Moyen Age et au début de la Renaissance italienne,” in Le monde végétal (XIIe–XVIIe siècles). Savoirs et usages sociaux, ed. A. J. Grieco, O. Redon, and L. Tongiorgi Tomasi (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1993), pp. 11–29. See M. Montanari, La fame e l’abbondanza (The Culture of Food), pp. 112–113.
On the “poetry of fruit” by Pietro Cantarini, see chapter 2.
The observation by Pope Paul II is in B. Laurioux, Gastronomie, humanisme et société à Rome au milieu de XV e siècle. Autour du “De honesta voluptate” de Platina (Florence: Sismel/Edizioni del Galuzzo, 2006), p. 468. See also p. 290 for Gianantonio Campano’s gift and epigram.
The report of the pears sent to Vienna comes from Dato de cosina, ovvero Conti resi per il Maestro di cucina del Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo per il mese di dicembre 1564, manuscript preserved in the Biblioteca del Commune di Trento, ed. Salvana Chiesa (whom I thank for pointing it out).
B. Andreolli, Le cacce dei Pico. Pratiche venatorie, paesaggio e società a Mirandola tra Medioevo ed Età moderna (S. Felice sul Panaro: Gruppo Studi Bassa Modenese, 1988), pp. 66, 68, discussed the gifts of fruit made by the Gonzagas; on the particular importance of pears, see Andreolli, “Dal brolo a frutteto. Alle origini della pericultura nell’Oltrepò mantovano,” in Pera dell’Oltre mantovano. Studio preliminare per l’Indicazione Geografica Protetta, ed. C. Malagoli (Mantua: Consorzio Pera tipica mantovana, n.d.), pp. 89–106.
For the sonnet by T. Campanella, see Le poesie, ed. F. Giancotti (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), p. 566 n. 146. For the text by Ercole Bentivoglio, see chapter 5.
For the information in the text, see G. Soderini, Il trattato degli arbori, ed. A. Bacchi della Lega (Bologna: Romagnoli Dall’Acqua, 1904), pp. 522–524.
See M. Montanari, Il cibo come cultura, pp. 18–19, for the idea of “extending the time.”
A. Gallo, Le venti giornate dell’agricoltura et de’piaceri della villa (Venice, 1615), pp. 100 ff. The definitive version of this text, to which I refer, is the final step of a work in progress that began with Le dieci giornate (1564) and continued with Le tredici giornate (1566).
About the famine of 1338, see Anonimo Romano, Cronaca, ed. G. Porta (Milan: Adelphi, 1981), IX, p. 35.
C. Felici, Dell’insalata e piante che in qualunque modo vengono per cibo del’homo, ed. G. Arbizzoni (Urbino: QuattroVenti, 1986), p. 92, on the practice of turning dried pears into flour. Columella had already talked about dried pears in L’arte dell’agricoltura, 2.21.3.
V. Tanara, L’economia del cittadino in villa (Bologna: Monti, 1644, but I quote from the Brigonci edition, Venice, 1655), p. 392, on dried pears, which only exceptionally “are still eaten by city dwellers.”
Pears from the land of Cockaigne are in Storia de Campriano contadino, ed. A. Zanetti (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1884), p. 61; “Ci son di Gennar le frutte fresche / belle e mature, e han la camicia rotta/ le pere moscatella e gentilesche” (As of January there is fresh fruit, beautiful and ripe, and skin is bursting on the moscatella and gentilesche pears).
The treatise by Carroli was studied by E. Casali, Il villano dirozzato. Cultura, società e potere nelle campagne romagnole della Controriforma (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1982); quotations in my text are on pp. 290, 294.
Even Agostino Gallo stresses the brief durability of the fruits of the pear tree, above all the most delicate and flavorful: the bergamot variety “is perhaps the most flavorful and delicate of all, but it does not keep for very long” (Le vinti giornate, pp. 106–107).
The work by J. B. de la Quintinie, Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers (Arles: Actes Sud, 1999), chap. III, pp. 390–407 on pears was published posthumously in 1690, two years after the death of the author.
On the illustrated catalogue by Bimbi, see Bartolomeo Bimbi, un pittore de piante e animale alla corte dei Medici, ed. S. Meloni Trkulja and L. Tongiorgi Tomasi (Florence: Edifir, 1998), pp. 140–141.
The “infatuation with pears” was discussed by F. Quellier, Des fruits et des hommes. L’arboriculture fruitière en Ile-de-France (vers 1600–1800) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2003), pp. 65–67; see also Quellier, “Les fruits de la civilité française: l’engouement des élites du XVIIe siècle pour le jardin fruitier-potager,” Polia. Revue de l’art des jardins VIII (2007), pp. 25–39. On the improvement of species cultivated in the modern era, see Quellier, La table des Français. Une histoire culturelle (XVe–début XIXe siècles) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2007), pp. 85–87.

Chapter 8. When Desire Conflicts with Health

The quotation from Nicolas Venette (Usage des fruits des arbres, pour se conserver en santé, ou pour se guérir, lors que l’on est malade, 1683) is in F. Quellier, La table des Français, p. 177.
On the relation between gastronomy and diet, the studies by J.-L. Flandrin are numerous and fundamental: see at least “Condamenti, cucina e dietetica tra XIV a XVI secolo,” in Storia dell’alimentazione, ed. J-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari (Rome: Laterza, 1997), and for the contested use of fruit, Chronique de Platine (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1992), pp. 133, 270.
On the prevalence in the Middle Ages of the regimen conservativum (nourishing the body with foods similar to one’s nature) with regard to the regimen reductivum (nourishing the body with foods in opposition to one’s nature, to arrive at a greater equilibrium), see J.-L. Flandrin, “La distinzione attraverso il gusto,” in La vita privata dal Rinascimento all’Illuminismo, ed. P. Ariès and G. Duby (Rome: Laterza, 2001), pp. 228–229 (with particular reference to the text of Aldobrandino da Siena, Le régime du corps, ed. L. Landouzy and R. Pépin [Paris: Champion, 1911], I, 2, p. 13). Flandrin situates the passage of one perspective to the other in the sixteenth century, but I am of the opinion that the supremacy of the first regimen had come to be doubted even earlier. According to the fourteenth-century Piedmontese doctor Giacomo Albini, the reductivum (or preservativum) regime would be “safer” (tutior) than the other. G. Albini, De sanitatis custodia, ed. G. Carbonelli (Pinerolo: Tipografia Sociale, 1906), IV, pp. 107–110.
The opinions of the various auctoritates (Galen, Avicenna, Averroes, and others) on the nutritional value of pears are assembled in the treatise on edible fruit by Battista Massa (1472), dedicated to Ercole I d’Este. See M. Marighelli, “De Frustibus vescendis” di Battista Massa da Argenta (Ferrara: Pragma, 1989), p. 85.
For Aldobrandino da Siena’s position, see Le régime du corps, p. 147: “Poires sont froides au premier degré et sèches au second.”
Arnaldo da Villanova, Regimen Sanitatis ad regem Aragonum, X, 56 (in Arnaldi de Villanova Opera medica omnia, X.1 (Barcelona: Publicacions i edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1996). See J. Cruz Cruz, Dietetica medieval , p. 237.
On medieval dietetics, see M. Weiss Adamson, Medieval Dietetics: Food and Drink in “Regimen Sanitatis” Literature from 800 to 1400 (Frankfurt am Mein: Lang, 1995).
On the Tacuina sanitatis, see C. Opsomer, L’art de vivre en santé. Images et recettes du Moyen Age, Le Tacuinum Sanitatis (manuscript 1041), Bibliothèque de l’Université de Liège, f. 4r, p. 139.
For the other quotations, see M. Savonarola in Libreto de tutte le cosse che se magnano. Un’opera di dietetica del sec. XV, ed. J. Nystedt (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1988), pp. 89–90; C. Durante da Gualdo, Il tesoro della sanità. Nel qual si insegna il modo di conservar la sanità e prolungar la vita e si tratta della natura dei cibi e dei remedi dei documenti loro, ed. E. Camillo (Milan: Serra e Riva, 1982), pp. 99–100.
On Francesco Petrarch’s passion for fruit and his arguments with doctors on this subject, see E. Fenzi, “Etica, estetica e politica del cibo in Petrarca,” Quaderni d’Italia XI (2006), pp. 88–92. The text by Sassoli is in Lettere a Francesco Datini, ed. C. Guasti (Florence: LeMonnier, 1880), pp. 370–374 (cf. M. Montanari, Convivio. Storia e cultura dei piaceri della tavola dall’Antichità al Medioevo [Rome: Laterza, 1989] pp. 458–460 n. 234).
The opinion of Agostino Gallo is in Le vinti giornate dell’agricoltura e de’piaceri della villa (Venice, 1569), p. 106.
For Alexander Neckham, I used M. T. Beonio Brocchieri Fumagalli, Le enciclopedie dell’Occidente medievale (Turin: Leoscher, 1981), p. 149.
For the rules of the Salerno school regarding the consumption of pears (the importance of eating them with wine and/or cooking them) see Regimen Sanitatis. Flos medicinae Scholae Salerni, ed. A. Sinno (Milan: Mursia, 1987), I, IX, 10.2, pp. 138–139.
For the perseverance into the modern era of medieval prescriptions on the consumption of pears, see, for example, Domenico Romoli (sixteenth century), according to whom the heat required to digest pears can be achieved “either through the exercise of running, or wine” (La singolar dottrina [Venice, 1560], XI, 134).
The link between proverbial sayings and medical texts of the Salerno school is stressed by F. Loux and P. Richard, Sagesse du corps. La santé et la maladie dans les proverbes français (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1978). On the relation between scientific tradition and popular culture, see above all J.-L. Flandrin, Condimenti, cucina e dietetica, p. 393 (from which I have taken French and English proverbs that imply diffidence toward the pear).
The quotation from A. Chesnel and J.-P. Migne in Dictionnaire de la sagesse populaire, recueil moral d’apophthegmes, axiomes, etc. (1855), p. 910: “Si quelquefois tu manges de la poire/ Il faudra le vin apparier . . . / Sans vin, la poire est poison et venin / Mais si la poire est un fruit non bénin / Aux maudissons le poirier j’abandonne.” An example of the present-day persistence of these proverbs can be found in G. Cosson, Inventaire des dictons des terroirs de France (Paris: Larousse, 2006), p. 293: “Sur la poire / Le prêtre ou le boire.”
The Italian proverb that compares the fig (to be eaten with water) to the pear (to be eaten with wine) can be found in many reference works: Boggione and Massobrio, Dizionario dei proverbi, v. 1.7.20.5.a; Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani, F 736; Antoniazzi and Citti, I detti del mangiare, n. 1226 (Tuscany); n. 582 (Lombardy); see n. 195 for the variant with peaches.
For the quotation from Hildegard of Bingen, see Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri novem, III, 2 (in Patrologia Latina, 197, c. 1218).
Proverbs on boiled pears in F. Loux and P. Richard, Sagesse du corps, p. 69 (see G. Cosson, Inventaire, p. 293); A. Chesnel and J.-P. Migne, Dictionnaire, p. 910: “Un antidote est en la poire cuite / Sans la cuisson le contraire s’ensuit.”
For the quotations that follow, see Durante da Gualdo, Il tesoro della sanità , p. 109; G. Soderini, Il trattato degli arbori, pp. 531, 534; M. Savonarola, Libretto, pp. 89–90; G. Simeoni, De conservanda sanitate. I consigli di un medico del Quattrocento, ed. M. D’Angelo (Cassacco: Libraria, 1994), p. 77: “coctis, id est assis in igne, raro uti po[s]sit post cibum cum modico coriandri aut anisi aut feniculi”; G. B. Fiera, Coena. Delle virtù delle erbe e quella parte dell’Arte medica che consiste nella regola del vitto, ed. M. G. Fiorini (Mantua: Galassi, 1992), p. 101 (the first edition of the work was in 1490).
The association cheese/pears in dietetics is in Durante da Gualdo, Il tesoro della sanità, p. 153; B. Pisanelli, Trattato della natura de’cibi e del bere (Carmagnola: Bellone, 1589), p. 45. The equilibrium between the two foods functions on the axis hot/cold. Less significant in this case would seem to be the opposition moist/dry, because aged cheese is known to have the same dry nature as the pear. Instead, fresh cheese, of a cold and moist nature, not having been dried by salting, is the cheese of choice at the beginning of a meal. For this distinction, see B. Platina, Il piacere onesto e la buona salute, ed. E. Faccioli (Turin: Einaudi, 1985), II, 39, p. 51.
For the final quotation by E. Bentivoglio, Le satire et altre rime piacevoli (Venice, 1557), c.17r, I used P. Camporesi, “Certosini e marzolini,” p. 97. According to Camporesi, the advice of Ercole Bentivoglio would have gone nowhere since there is no trace of cheese among the fruits served at upper-class tables at that time. “The famous, proverbial pairing of cheese and fruit may not yet have come into use or, if it made its way through Italy, it would have to have been primarily where the merchant middle class, particularly in Tuscany and central Italy, maintained close and avaricious sharecropping relations with the peasantry, precisely from whom one had to conceal the pleasure of a pear accompanied by a chunk of cheese.” Our interpretive itinerary is clearly going in another direction.

Chapter 9. Peasants and Knights

Le dieci tavole dei proverbi, ed. M. Cortellazzo (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1995); the proverb quoted in the text is on p. 71, n. 800. The perseverance of the proverb into the nineteenth century is documented in Raccolta di proverbi toscani con illustrazioni cavata dai manoscritti di Giuseppe Giusti ed ora ampliata e ordinata (Florence: LeMonnier, 1853), p. 306, and in the next edition: Raccolta di proverbi toscani nuovamente ampliate da quella di Giuseppe Giusti, ed. G. Capponi (Florence: LeMonnier, 1871). In recent anthologies: C. Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani (Milan: Mondadori, 2007), F 1072, p. 588. See Antoniazzi and Citti, I detti del mangiare, in which the proverb is documented in the Venetian dialect, absolutely identical to the sixteenth-century version: “Formagio, pero e pan: pasto da vilan; formagio, pan e pero, pasto da cavaliero” (n. 1409).
For the Spanish proverb, see H. Nuñez and L. De Leon, Refranes o proverbios en castellano, 1555, II, 1147, quoted in Thesaurus proverbiorum Medii Aevi. Lexicon der Sprichwörter des romanisch-germanischen Mittelalters, ed. S. Singer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 6, p. 439.
For the French proverb: Dictionnaire des proverbes français et des façons de parler comiques, burlesques et familières avec l’explication et les étymologies les plus avérées (Paris, 1758), p. 279. The same as in A. Caillot, Nouveau dictionnaire proverbial, satirique et burlesque, plus complet que ceux qui ont paru jusqu’à ce jour, à l’usage de tout le monde (Paris, 1826), p. 325.
For the “separate” circulation of the two parts of the proverb, see Lapucci, Dizionario, p. 588: “Even singly the first or the second part has been diffused.” (See also the comment quoted in the text.) A few examples are in I detti del mangiare: no. 1722: “Vino, formaggio e pere: pasto da cavaliere” (with the interesting substitution of wine for bread); no. 889: “pane, formaggiu e pere: mangiare da cavaliere” (Puglia).
The opinions of F. Loux and P. Richard are in Sagesse du corps, pp. 72–77.
The text by B. Tacconi, La Danae (1496), was published by Azzoguidi (Bologna, 1888); the passage quoted is on p. 11.
The proverb about the walnuts is in F. Serdonati, 3, c. 220v. In recent anthologies: V. Boggione and L. Massobrio, Dizionario dei proverbi, v. 1.7.7.28.II: “Noci e pane, pasto da villano; pane e noci, pasto da spose.” The variant with the dog in place of the peasant is in Detti del mangiare, n. 302 (Emilia). Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi, n. 396, p. 1019, proposes a dietetic explanation: “This means that by eating a moderate amount of walnuts with bread (bread accompanied by walnuts) one obtains a tasty and nutritious dish, worthy of a festive table; by eating many walnuts and little bread one provokes an indigestion.”
F. Serdonati lists the two versions of the proverb under C for “cacio” and F for “formaggio” (2, c.237r). The quotation from Dante comes from Paradiso, XV, verses 97 ff.
The quotations that follow come from “Proverbi italiani. Raccolti, e ridotti sotto a certi capi e luoghi comuni per ordine d’alfabeto da Orlando Pescetti,” in Vinetia, Appresso Sebastiano Combi (1611), c. 46v; G. C. Croce, Selva di esperienza nella quale si sentono mille, e tanti Proverbi, provati et esperimentati da’ nostri Antichi. Tirato per via d’alfabeto da Giulio Cesare Croce (Bologna: Bartolomeo Cochi, 1618); no. 538 in the attributed numbering in G. C. Croce, L’Eccellenza e Trionfo del Porco e altre opere in prosa, ed. M. Rouch (Bologna: Pendragon, 2006), p. 176; F. Lena, Proverbi italiani e latini raccolti già da Francesco Lena . . . et in questa seconda edizione corretti et accresciuti dallo stesso autore (Bologna: Longhi, 1694), p. 67 (the first edition was published in Lucca in 1674).
In current anthologies only the ambiguous form is listed, which I would consider the oldest. The “simplified” variant has been retained instead in the oral tradition: “Caciu, pira e pani unn’è cibbu di viddani” (documented by Ponino De Blasi, Sicily, March 2007).
The greengrocer who sells pears in the city is in Sabadino Degli Arienti, Le Porretane, ed. G. Gambarin (Bari: Laterza, 1914), XXXIX, p. 234.
The last quotations are in Petrus de Crescentiis, Ruralia commoda, V. 20, ed. W. Richter (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1996), II, p. 153; C. Felici, Dell’insalata e piante che in qualunque modo vengono per cibo del’homo, ed. G. Arbizzoni (Urbino: QuattroVenti, 1986), p. 91.

Chapter 10. To Savor (To Know) / Taste (Good Taste)

For Aldobrandino da Siena’s reference to the authority of Avicenna: Le régime du corps, eds. L. Landouzy and R. Pépin (Paris: Champion, 1911), 1, 2, p. 14; “car, si com dist Avicennes, se li cors de l’oume est sains, totes les coses ki li ont millor savour à la bouche, mieux le nourissent.”
The quotation by Maynus de Mayneriis is from Regimen Sanitatis, III, 20: “per condimenta gustui efficiuntur delectabiliora, et per consequens digestibilliora. Nam quod est delectabilis est ad digestionem melius: tum quia per condimenta additur bonitas, et corrigitur malicia” (from the Lyon edition of 1517, f. 44v).
On the equivalence of goodness and health (good flavor equals good dietetics), see Y. Grappe, Sulle tracce del gusto. Storia e cultura del vino nel Medioevo (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2006), pp. 78–82; F. Pucci Donati, “Dietetica e cucina nel Regimen Sanitatis di Maino de’ Maineri,” Food and History 4, no. 1 (2007), p. 130.
On the equivalence of goodness and health (gustatory goodness equals dietary goodness) in medieval culture, see again Y. Grappe, Sulle tracce del gusto, pp. 57–84; M. Montanari, “Sapore e sapere: il senso del gusto come strumento di conoscenza,” in I cinque sensi (per tacer del sesto), ed. F. Ghelli (Florence: Le Monnier, 2007), pp. 71–78. The superiority of taste over the other senses as a means of understanding reality is upheld in the thirteenth century by the anonymous Tractatus de quinque sensibus sed specialiter de saporibus (or Summa de saporibus) studied and published by C. Burnett in “The Superiority of Taste,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes LIV (1991), pp. 230–238.
For the text by Bentivoglio, see chapter 8.
The passage from Montaigne is in “Apologie de Raymond Sebon”: “C’est à l’aventure quelque sens particulier . . . qui apprend . . . aux frelons, aux fourmis et aux rats, de choisir toujours le meilleur fromage et la meilleure poire avant que d’y avoir tâté” (Les Essais, II, 12).
The Dialogus Salamonis et Marcolphi (from which I quote the prologue of part I) can be found in the Camporesi edition of G.C. Croce, Le sottilissime astuzie di Bertoldo. Le piacevoli e ridicolose semplicità di Bertoldino (Turin: Einaudi, 1978), p. 170.
On the peasant as a “human beast,” see P. Camporesi, La maschera di Bertoldo. G. C. Croce e la letteratura carnevalesca (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), pp. 31 ff.
The comment by Landi is in La Formaggiata di sere Stentato al serenissimo re della virtude, ed. A. Capatti (Milan: Comitato per la tutela del formaggio gran padano, 1991), p. 52.
The proverb about pears that end up with pigs can be found in Boggione and Massobrio, Dizionario dei proverbi, VIII.1.2.3I–II–II.
On the birth (or rather, on the increase in importance) of the idea of “good taste” in the modern era, I referred primarily to J.-L. Flandrin, “La distinzione attraverso il gusto,” in La vita privata dal Rinascimento all’Illuminismo, eds. P. Ariès and G. Duby (Rome: Laterza, 2001), pp. 230–238, and to L. Vercelloni, Viaggio intorno al gusto. L’odissea occidentale dalla società di corte all’edonismo di massa (Milan: Mimesis, 2005), pp. 20–25, 56–59. For the quotation from Voltaire, see under “Goût” in Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, v. VII. On the transformation of the idea of “taste” into that of “good taste,” see also P. D’Angelo, “Il gusto in Italia e Spagna dal Quattrocento al Settecento,” in Il gusto. Storia di un’idea estetica, ed. L. Russo (Palermo: Aesthetica, 2000), pp. 11–34; N. Perullo, “Per un’estetica del cibo,” Aesthetica 78 (2006), pp. 16–17.
A. Hauser, Storia sociale dell’arte (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), II, p. 49.
The two stories about Cosimo de’Medici are in A. Poliziano, Detti piacevoli , 45, ed. T. Zanat (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1983), p. 51; and T. Costo, Il fuggilozio, III, 37, ed. C. Calenda (Rome: Salerno, 1989), pp. 199–200.
On Bertoldo’s “wild fruits,” see chapter 6.
The Catalan proverb is in Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear, ed. A. Alcover (Palma de Mallorca, 1979), VIII, p. 444 (see “Pera”).
Sermini’s invective against the rustic is included in a series of verses interspersed among his stories: G. Sermini, Le novelle, ed. G. Vettori (Rome: Avanzini e Torraca, 1968), 2, p. 600.
For the Capitolo sulle pesche (before August 1522) see F. Berni, Rime, ed. G. Bàrberi Squarotti (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), pp. 27–30 (the quotations from verses 16–17, 51, 52, 55). Of these verses and the “mystery” to which they allude, I have proposed a literal interpretation, perhaps questionable in an expressive context such as that of Berni’s, permeated with metaphors, innuendoes, and allusions (for the most part to practical things or sexual preferences); it is evident in any case that each play on words presupposes a blending of “real” images, which makes the twists of meaning all the more effective.
Ricordo d’agricoltura by C. Tarello can be read in the edition by M. Berengo (Turin: Einaudi, 1975); the passage quoted is on p. 122. The first edition of Ricordo was published in 1567 in Venice by Rampazzetto. Scottoni’s notes are in the eighteenth-century reissue: Ricordo d’agricoltura di M. Camillo Tarello, corretto, illustrato, aumentato con note, aggiunti e tavole del padre maestro Gian Francesco Scottoni min. conventuale (Venice: Giammaria Bassaglia, 1772), pp. 245–246.

Chapter 11. How a Proverb Is Born

The chapter on cardoons (from which I quote verses 16–18) is in F. Berni, Rime, ed. G. Bàrberi Squarotti (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), pp. 23–26.
The proverb “May you never know, knave . . .” appears twice in F. Serdonati, 1, c. 106r (with comment quoted in the text): 2, c.237r.
On the birth of a rural elite in the last centuries of the Middle Ages and its progressive decline in the ensuing centuries, see G. Pinto, “Bourgeoisie de village et différenciations sociales dans les campagnes de l’Italie communale (XIIIe–XVe siècles),” in Les élites rurales dans l’Europe médievale et moderne, ed. F. Menant and J.-P. Jessenne (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2007), pp. 91–110.
The text by the anonymous thirteenth-century Genoese can be read in N. Lagomaggiore, “Rime genovesi dei secoli XIII–XIV,” Archivio glottologico italiano II (1875–76), p. 280: “E no so cossa pu dura / ni de maor prosperitae / como vilan chi de bassura / monta en gran prosperitae / otra moo desnatura / pin de orgoio e de peccae.”
The Calabrese proverb is in Detti del mangiare, p. 94.
The proverbial opposition between urban courtesy and peasant knavery is in F. Serdonati, 1, c. 19v.
On the satire of the rustic, see also D. Merlini, Saggio di ricerche sulla satira contro il villano, con appendice di documenti inediti (Turin: Loescher, 1894), whose content has been superseded but remains a formidable mine of texts. My own brief examination of La satira del villano fra imperialismi cittadino e integrazione culturale is in La Costruzione del dominio cittadino sulle campagne. Italia centro-settentrionale, secoli XIII–XIV, ed. Roberta Mucciarelli, Gabriela Piccini, and Giuliano Pinto (Siena: Protagon, 2009), pp. 697–705.
The text by Carroli is in E. Casali, Il villano dirozzato. Cultura società e potere nelle campagne romagnole della Controriforma (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1982), p. 128.
The catalogue of “abuses and vices of peasants” is in the appendix to G. C. Croce, Le sottilissime astuzie di Bertoldo. Le piacevoli e ridicolose semplicità di Bertoldino (Turin: Einaudi, 1978), p. 233. Ibid, p. 11, note 5, quotation by Croce taken from Avvisi burleschi venuto da diverse parti del mondo. Cose notabilissime e degne da essere intese (Bologna: Cochi, 1628), c. 3v.
Sabadino degli Arienti, Le Porretane, ed. G. Gambarin (Bari: Laterza, 1914), XXXVIII, p. 227–229.
On the “chain of being,” see chapter 7.
On the image of the peasant/thief that developed in the Italian urban culture of the late Middle Ages and early modern era, see E. Sereni, “Agricoltura e mondo rurale,” in Storia d’Italia. I caratteri originali (Turin: Einaudi, 1972), I, p. 194. See also G. Cherubini, L’Italia rurale del basso Medioevo (Rome: Laterza, 1996), p. 135; G. Piccinni, “Seminare, fruttare, raccogliere,” in Mezzadria e salariati nelle terre di Monte Oliveto Maggiore (1374–1430) (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1982), pp. 220–221.
On peasant thefts, I have quoted G. Giorgetti, Contadini e proprietari nell’Italia moderna: rapporti di produzione e contratti agrari dal secolo XVI a oggi (Turin: Einaudi, 1974), p. 42; M. Rouch, Les communautés rurales de la campagne bolonaise et l’image du paysan dans l’oeuvre de Giulio Cesare Croce (1550–1609) (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 1984), II, pp. 744–745. For France, see Quellier, La table des Français, p. 150. Quellier, in Des fruits et les hommes, pp. 391–392, has insisted on the symbolic meaning of the thefts in the orchards/gardens.
The proverb on the avarice of the peasant is in Serdonati, 3, c. 6v–7r. “To eat cheese, pears, and bread . . . the peasant would sell the farm” is in O. Pescetti, Proverbi italiani. Raccolti e ridotti sotto a certi capi e luoghi comuni per ordine alfabetico da Orlando Pescetti (Venice: Appresso Sebastiano Combi, 1611), c. 46v: “The peasant would sell the farm to eat cheese, bread, and pears.” For nineteenth-century versions, see Raccolta di proverbi toscani, p. 306, and F. Bellonzi, Proverbi toscani (Florence: Giunti, 2000), p. 31, n. 421.
The quotation from Landi in Formaggiata di sere Stentato al serenissimo re della virtude, p. 54. Also in Pescetti, Proverbi italiani, c, 46v: “Il villano venderia il gaban per mangiar cacio, pere e pan” (the peasant would sell his clothes to eat cheese, pears, and bread). The proverb also exists in a French variant, of likely Italian origin: “Si le paysan savait ce qu’est manger fromage, poire et pain, il engagerait son cheval pour en manger toute l’année” (if the peasant knew what it is to eat cheese, pears, and bread, he would pawn his horse to eat them all year round). The proverb is listed at www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/proverbe.fr.
A modern version of the proverb stresses the moral aspect (condemnation of gluttony) while overlooking the social figure of the peasant: “Il goloso venderà casa e averi per mangiare formaggio, pane e pere” (the glutton will sell house and possessions to eat cheese, bread, and pears).
“Al villan, che mai si sazia non gli far torto, ne grazia” is documented in Pescetti, Proverbi italiani, c. 237v.
Crescenzi’s remark is in Ruralia commoda, XI, 9, ed. W. Richter (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1998), p. 215.

Chapter 12. “Do Not Share Pears with Your Master”: The Proverb as the Site of Class Conflict

The reproach made by the king to Bertoldo is in G. C. Croce, Le sottilissime astuzie di Bertoldo, p. 43.
For the diffusion of the proverb on the division of pears in Spain and France, see Thesaurus proverbiorum Medii Aevi. Lexicon der Sprichwörter des romanisch-germanischen Mittelalters, ed. S. Singer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 6, 7, 2, 3, 2, 2, p. 53. For the versions quoted in the text, see J. Morawski, Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle (Paris: Champion, 1925), 2058: “Qui o seignor part poires il n’a pas des plus belles” (whoever shares pears with his master does not get the best); Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi italiani, M 575.
Sebastiàn de Horozco, Teatro universal de proverbios, ed. J. L. Alonso Hernandez (Gröningen/Salamanca, 1986), n. 1065, documents the use already in the sixteenth century of the Spanish proverb, “En burlas ni en veras / con su señor non partas peras.” The same is found in Francisco de Espinosa, Refranero (1527–1547), ed. E. S. O’Kane (Madrid: Imprenta Aguirre, 1968), p. 187. For the present-day use of the proverb, see E. Strauss, Dictionary of European Proverbs (London: Routledge, 1994), 1556. The interpretation concerning respect can be found in www.members.fortunecity.com/flopezr/html/espanol/libros/a/refranes.htm: “Ni en burlas, ni en veras, con tu amo [i.e., señor] partas peras. Advierte el respeto con que siempre debe tratarse a los superiores.” For the variant of hard pears: usuarios.lycos.es/sequeros/refranes/refranes.htm. In Catalan also: “Ni de burles ne de veres, amb ton senyor ni vulguis partir peres” (with your master do not risk dividing pears: he will eat the ripe ones, you the sour ones).
The comment of R. Cotgrave in Dictionarie of the French and English tongues (London 1611) is apt: “He that eates peares with his Lord either cannot, or should not pick such as he likes” (quoted by T. Scully in the repertory of French and English proverbs in “Comme lard es pois,” 82).
The proverb about the bear is listed in Lapucci, Dizionario dei proverbi, 0 567, p. 1075, who rightly remarks: “He who has business with someone more powerful and arrogant risks losing everything he has invested.”
For the simile of potentes (the powerful) with wild animals and bears in particular, see Montanari, La fame e l’abbondanza (The Culture of Food), p. 38.
The expression fiumane di proverbi, “streams of proverbs,” is used by Camporesi in his introduction to G. C. Croce, Le sottilissime astuzie de Bertoldo , p. 38.
For the definition of the proverb as “maximally polyvalent,” see M. Rouch, Les communautés rurales, II, p. 994.
From E. Schulze-Busacker I have used “Eléments de culture populaire dans la littérature courtoise,” in La culture populaire au Moyen Age, ed. P. Boglioni (Montreal: Les Editions Univers, 1979), pp. 81–100 (on p. 100 is the observation that recourse to proverbs serves “less to single out a class or a particular way of perceiving the world . . . than to create a distance, to depersonalize the discourse”); and Proverbes et expressions proverbiales dans la littérature narrative du Moyen Age français (Geneva: Slatkine, 1985), pp. 15–16.
Other references are in A. J. Greimas, “Idiotismes, proverbes, dictons,” Cahiers de Lexicologie II (1960), pp. 41–61, and S. Schmarje, Das sprichwörtliche Material in den Essais von Montaigne (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973).
For the discussion of marginal iconography, see L. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); M. Camille, Image on the Edge; A. Otwell, “Medieval Manuscript Marginalia and Proverbs” (www.heyotwell.com/work/arthistory/marginalia.html).
That proverbial texts require a context to have meaning (and that they lose it when taken out of their context, as, for example, in the “anthologies” compiled by scholars or writers) is stressed, for reasons not of a semiotic or linguistic nature, but of an epistemological nature, by S. Shapin, “Proverbial Economies: How an Understanding of Some Linguistic and Social Features of Common Sense Can Throw Light on More Prestigious Bodies of Knowledge, Science for Example,” Social Studies of Science 31, no. 5 (October 2001), pp. 753–754.
Considerations by N. Zemon Davis on the role of proverbs in the cultural dynamic between upper and lower classes are in Le culture del popolo, pp. 312–313.
On proverbes au vilain, see A. Tobler, Li proverbe au vilain. Die Sprichwörter des gemeinen Mannes altfranzösiche Dichtung (Leipzig, 1895); J. Bednar, “Li proverbe au vilain,” Cahiers d’histoire II (2000); E. Schulze-Busacker, Les “proverbes au vilain,” in Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, VI (1989), pp. 113–127.
For the “common proverb” by Pisanelli, see chapter 3.
The proverb about the swallow, certainly patterned after Aesop’s fable “The Young Man and the Swallow,” appears in the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (1098a 18) and later enters the collection of proverbs by Zenobius (v.12). See I proverbi greci. Le raccolte di Zenobio a Diogeniano, ed. E. Letti (Soverio Manelli: Rubettino, 2006), p. 191, and p. 444 n. 461.
The circularity of knowledge is at the heart of many works by Carlo Ginzburg, among which I particularly recall Il formaggio e i vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del ’500 (Turin: Einaudi, 1976).
I have already quoted Raccolta di proverbi toscano con illustrazioni cavata da manoscritti di Giuseppe Giusti ed ora ampliata e ordinata (Florence: Le Monnier, 1853, 1871).
D. Provenzal, Perchè si dice così? (Milan: Hoepli, 1958), p. 6.
For the quotation from Bruna Lancia, see Antoniazzi and Citti, I detti del mangiare, p. 22.
The proverb that is “turned around,” which suggests that the secret not be revealed to the master, can be found only in more recent anthologies; see Guazzotti and Oddera, Il grande dizionario dei proverbi italiani, p. 44. I have more than once heard this version myself in various circumstances. One instance was reported by Luca Vaschetti of a peasant grandmother, aged eighty-two, from Ternavasso di Poirino in the province of Torino: “Il paysan douv nen fe savei quant alè bun il furmag cun i prus” (the peasant should not know how good is cheese with pears), 2007.
The version that I have called “vengeful and liberating” was brought to my attention by Gabriella Piccinni, who heard it in the house of her grandmother, Nella Monti, in the Sienese countryside.
I have quoted from Don Quixote in the Italian translation, by Vittorio Bodini (Turin: Einaudi, 1957).