From the Kitchen to the Table

If the cook’s domain was the kitchen as we saw in chapter 3, then the steward’s was the dining room. In addition to overseeing what went on in the kitchen, the steward, whom we’ve already met, controlled what happened in the dining room and served his master at the head table. At Urbino, the steward was expected to be intelligent, practical, plain, and eloquent, with good habits.^[1] Meal service for Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, was his steward’s primary concern; he was required to stay in the kitchen at night and in the morning so that Montefeltro was served according to his tastes and with the appropriate level of splendor and cleanliness. As well, the steward selected the appropriate room for dining, the warmest room in the winter, ensuring that there was plenty of wood for the fireplace, and in summer months, a cool, shading spot in the garden or loggia.^[2] He chose the serving vessels and checked each plate before it was sent to the table. In Milan, Ludovico il Moro’s steward prepared the room where he ate (often the anticamera of his own apartments), lighting the fireplace and making sure the table was set properly.^[3] The steward was in charge of orchestrating the meal and meal service, including the timing of dishes coming from the kitchen. He made sure that the cook kept the kitchen clean and saw to it that everything needed for both the morning and evening meal was set out. Once the morning meal was finished, he went back to the kitchen and made arrangements for supper, reusing any odd bits of leftovers from the earlier meal.^[4]

The lengthy inscription from the frontispiece of Domenico Romoli’s La singolare dottrina^[5] gives us an idea of the expected breadth of knowledge the steward should have—or at least Romoli’s:

And he had to dress appropriately in elegant attire, displaying a degree of refinement worthy of the courtly environment in which he moved. According to Reale Fusoritto da Narni, who expanded Vincenzo Cervio’s work in 1593, “The steward must wear black, like a calm, serious man; he must appear clean and elegant as befits the honor of his office.”^[6]

Like the cook, the steward had his own staff to help with the orchestration of the meal: the carver (trinciante), the credenza steward (credenziero), the wine steward (bottigliero), the cup-bearer (coppiero), and all those who worked to serve the meal. The same regulations that governed the kitchen and its staff also outlined the duties of all those serving at the table (such as the Ordine e officij de casa de lo illustrissimo signor duca di Urbino at Urbino and Offitii della Bocca in Ferrara), and much of this was then codified in printed texts like those of Domenico Romoli, Giovanni Battista Rossetti, and Vincenzo Cervio. While the Ordine and Offitii were written with a particular court in mind (Urbino and Ferrara), Romoli, Rossetti, and Cervio directed their texts to household functionaries. A strict code of behavior, maintaining the highest level of decorum and protocol were all crucial to the success of a meal and to the honor of the host. The steward and the most senior of his staff were often of nobility, and the younger members were frequently raised and trained in the household of a relative; this was a way to cement future bonds and networks of patronage. Indeed, since the Middle Ages, aristocratic training often took place through service in a princely household where rules of etiquette were influenced by the hierarchal dynamics of the court; these were the people who handled the valued table furnishings (theft, especially silver plate, was always an issue). The young men were kept away from the kitchen boys. Regulations, like the Ordine from Urbino, described the infrastructure and mechanisms of household operations and the ideal ways for carving meat, pouring wine, or offering the basin for finger washing before and during the meal.^[7]

We begin with the carver, who was considered absolutely essential to the entire banquet experience, working through every course from beginning to end. In most cases, there was one carver per table. Carvers were ideally nobles whose sole duty was to impress their peers with their feats of dexterous knife work as we will see later in this chapter. But, according to Cervio, if not a noble, the carver could be someone from a good family with enough wealth to be well dressed and have his own servants.^[8] He was not normally a member of the household staff, but rather a peer who considered it an honor and a privilege to carve at the table of his superior. Carving was a true art, and Reale Fusoritto da Narni considered carving and fencing two sides of the same activity. It was the carver who disassembled the grand presentations into smaller portions, even though it was the steward who actually served the food. The carver remained at the table throughout the meal to attend his master.^[9] Moreover, he oversaw the seasoning of each plate with a bit of salt on the tip of his knife and distributed the sauce evenly on the individual plates. The carver’s practical skills were extensive; most meats, poultry, and fish emerged from the kitchen whole and were carved in the dining space, often at the credenza, but in clear sight of all those present. The credenziero (credenza steward) presided over an entire secondary kitchen staff whose responsibility was to arrange cold food in courses that began the banquet and punctuated it by alternating with all the hot courses from the kitchen.^[10] Some of these dishes were composed from leftovers; all of these dishes could wait around for the hot courses or entertainments to finish so that there was never a halt in service. Perhaps the credenziero’s most important job was designing and executing sugar sculpture that decorated the tables (we will return to these in a separate section in this chapter), and he prepared the majority of the subtleties that were the central attraction of the banquet. He had a supply of spices and gold for gilding food. As well, the credenziero kept “all the table services in good order, splendid and clean . . . the silver spotless and set the table with fine, white cloths. All should be kept with the strictest care and good faith.”^[11] At Urbino, three credenzieri were required to clean the silver that was to be presented on fine, white linen; they cared for vessels belonging to Duke Federico da Montefeltro and, of course, prepared the salads and other dishes coming from the credenza.^[12] It is at the credenza that the master’s food was tasted to ensure that he was not poisoned, usually by the steward.^[13]

Next we come to the wine steward who was responsible for ordering the wines for each meal from the cellar master (canevano), red or white, sweet or dry, and he had to know when to serve them.^[14] With the first course of melon and salad, he might serve vin Greco or Salerno bianco; he would serve light white wines with boiled dishes, full-bodied reds with roasts, and ippocrasso or sweet red Salerno with fruit. He might also serve Malvasia, Moscatello, or Vernaccia, particularly in the winter. Once he chose the wines to serve throughout the meal, he mixed them with water as we see in this detail of Veronese’s Marriage at Cana (figure 5.1).^[15] He had to determine when and how much to dilute the wine; as the meal progressed, he often added more water to the wine. As well, he presented, removed, and washed the wine cups or glasses after each drink. Conversely, it was the cup-bearer who mixed and poured the wine that was served to the master, and he tasted it first. Romoli said much the same thing except that he included both the host and his guests at the head table: “walking and showing his happy face having reached his lord, with his right hand he will uncover the glass and dexterously pour a little wine into the cup, placing it in the hand of his lord, and at the same time a bit of water. And once he has tasted it and watered the wine, he will place the saucer under the glass.”^[16] This implies, then, that the wine steward mixed the wine for all the other tables, but not that of his master. It was the cellar master who was in charge of the wine barrels, pouring out whatever was needed for each meal, but only with explicit permission, and he was required to keep an inventory of his holdings.^[17] Finally, we come to the panatiero who supplied the bread, essential at every meal.^[18] He was not a baker; rather, he measured the weight, number, and quality of the breads served at each meal.

Let’s look briefly at one meal service at the court of Ferrara in 1536. Ippolito d’Este, the archbishop of Milan and future cardinal whom we will meet again later in this chapter, often shared his table with both male and female guests^[19]; the table was covered with tablecloths and napkins of fine linen and adorned with silver candlesticks. They drank from crystal glasses and ate off fine silver plate. His chief steward, Girolamo Guarniero, worked hard to create an atmosphere of gracious living. Guarniero had to ensure that the tables were laid to perfection and that the wine steward, Priete, served the correct wines and had washed the glasses properly. He oversaw the credenzieri, Zebelino and Gasparino, to ensure the credenza was impressively decorated with silver plate, freshly laundered tablecloths and napkins, and that the two had properly prepared the salads and other cold dishes for the meal. Ippolito’s pages brought in bowls of scented water for washing his hands, and his meals were served to him by his courtiers: Vicino, Ascanio Pari, and another. His meat was carved by Alfonso da Reggio, his trinciante.

The Dining Room

Where did people eat? Where did people actually take their meals? Of course, this depended on the type of meal: a grand banquet or an ordinary daily meal. No designated dining room existed in the Renaissance. Dining locations were fluid, where one ate depended on the meal and the number of guests. Rooms could be transformed for dining simply by moving in tables, chairs, or benches; and the room could be enhanced with tapestries or a credenza for the elaborate display of silver and gold service ware. Preparation for dining in the palazzo or country villa was flexible: trestle tables covered in a layer of fine linen were portable, as was the seating; walnut benches delicately patterned with ivory or other rare inlays or Roman-inspired x-form Savonarola chairs fitted with upholstered cushions were easily moved from room to room. However, a more public space like the sala (or portego in Venice) on the piano nobile remained the favored room for dining when guests were present or when a large space was needed for banqueting and entertaining during a meal—and a place for dancing afterward. This large hall was generally located at the head of the vaulted staircase leading up from the courtyard. An enormous fireplace and hooded chimneypiece of cool, gray stone, carved with the family coat of arms, decorated with candelabra-style arabesques, dominated the space. It had a timbered ceiling and tile floors, glistening with colorful geometric patterns; the interior walls were lined with Flemish verdure tapestries, whose foliate designs created the illusion of a garden (see, for example, figure 5.2). For a more intimate meal with the family or with a small group of friends, the smaller, private saletta was used; if the saletta was near the sala, the group could move there for dancing or musical entertainment. In Venice, the camera (off the portego) was used for small formal dinners and for everyday meals in cold weather.^[20] For example, at a supper held for the prince of Bisignano in the home of Marco Antonio Venier on January 16, 1521, the prince and his guests dined in the side rooms and had twenty-two courses, while others ate in the portego itself.^[21]

Looking at household inventories, their lists of furnishings also give us insight into where people ate their larger meals or entertained. Often the saletta had tables, benches, and at least one credenza stocked with maiolica ware for dining, serving utensils, bowls and plates, tablecloths—everything necessary for serving and eating a meal. This was certainly the case in Giulio Romano’s house, whose sala grande and saletta not only had tables and benches, but the walls were hung with tapestries and sculpture decorated the room—the appropriate setting for a meal and entertaining guests.^[22] On a larger scale as we already saw in chapter 4, if you were hosting a pope, as the duke and duchess of Castel Gandolfo did in 1589, rooms throughout the castello were transformed into dining spaces for about three hundred people.^[23] So where did everyone eat during their two- or three-day stay? While there is mention in the documents of a sala grande with tables, chairs, and credenze for the pope, perhaps for the grand event, other meals were eaten separately. The pope’s apartments, renovated just for him, included a saletta set up for dining, with a kitchen nearby. For simpler meals, the cardinals shared another saletta, as did the prelates and monsignori. For at least one meal, the thirty prelates ate in the sala da basso, which had a credenza set up near the entrance for the dinnerware, two more smaller tables set up for the cold service or first course, and another table for the wine steward to serve the wine. The cardinals ate in the sala di sopra. Their credenze consisted of three tables and was set up near the fireplace. We know that there were twenty tables set up with seven benches to a table for the public dining area (tinello publico), and three men brought out their food from the communal kitchen (cucina comunale); presumably, those eating here were townspeople and not staff, who ate in their own dining hall (tinello della famiglia) and after everyone else was served. The cardinals’ gentlemen (“gentihuomini di cardinali”) ate separately in a room (tinello) with a window; their tables seated thirty. The pope’s staff ate separately from the others. Needless to say, everyone had a place to eat and someone to serve them.

Paolo Cortesi, writing in 1510, gives us a view of the Renaissance cardinal’s ideal palace, locating not just the kitchens and dining spaces, but also the location of the housemaster’s and steward’s rooms.^[24] Their rooms should be next to each other since their duties are similar and near the main staircase. A corridor should connect their rooms to the pantry, kitchen, and breakfast room and should adjoin the small dining room. This arrangement would allow them to handle any problem that might arise. The same staircase leads to the sala grande. Adjacent to the cardinal’s audience chamber (close to his bedroom) should be a dining room (for more informal meals) and the silver closet (credenza). The main dining room should overlook a covered walk and a garden so that their cheerful aspect will make dining all the more pleasant. The silver closet (credenza) is arranged with cabinets so that the display of silver vases can be seen and connoisseurs can examine its ornament and handle the silver. The cardinal himself, then, had two dining spaces both with credenze (silver closets), and presumably, the breakfast room and small dining room near the kitchen were for the staff.

Eating Out of Doors

Outdoor dining was not uncommon and seems to be the norm on occasion in papal court circles. Bartolomeo Scappi, in the preamble to Book IV of his Opera, mentioned the steward, Francesco Reinoso, who cleverly placed the table settings out of doors, affording shade from a warm sun, shelter from a prevailing wind, and the bubbling of water for heat—all for the pleasure of the guests.^[25] Taking place in a partly covered loggia, it brought the outdoors conveniently within the building walls and often facing the garden. This was the perfect space for grand banqueting and could be serviced by the ground floor kitchen. This certainly could be the case at the Casali residence in Bologna, where the lower kitchen was just off the courtyard loggia, where there was a walnut table for eating.^[26] Their country estate had a similar arrangement; underneath the lower loggia, there was a small walnut table for dining with wooden benches, making dining outdoors easy. It was common practice to eat out of doors in the country, whether at the villa or in the countryside; the advantage, in part, was the clean air, fresh produce, and the benefits of nature. As we saw in the previous chapter, nearly every Roman owned at least one vigna (vineyard) either on the unpopulated hill area within the circumference of the Aurelean walls or just outside them along the roads radiating from the city.^[27] If the property did not have a structure (for many vigne did not), they could simply have their steward or credenziero pack up food, dishes, and whatever was needed to prepare a basic meal^[28]; or if there was a family residence on the estate (as was the case for the Casali family), friends and family could retire to the country for a few days of leisure.

Consider, then, the traveling meal. In 1548 when Francesca Sforza, wife of Gerolamo Orsini, duke of Bracciano and count of Anguillara, decided to leave Rome and spend some time in the country at her vigna not far from Bracciano, her credenziero, Pietro di Campagnano, packed up everything she needed for a meal. He packed in pouches necessities like plates, serving ware, her cutlery in a leather case, a basin and ewer for washing hands, tablecloths and napkins, and all the other minor things like sugar, spices, and bread and transported them on horseback; her wine steward brought along the wine.^[29] Similarly, Stefano di Domenico Peroni, credenziero for Virginio Orsini, the duke of Bracciano, packed up plates, dishes, utensils, and so on when Virginio decided to make a trip from Rome to Florence in 1595.^[30] An engraving from Bartolomeo Scappi (see figure 5.3) gives us an example of an outdoor kitchen setup, including all the assorted traveling boxes. Thus, when traveling, as in Orsini’s case or that of Sixtus V, who was attending a banquet, it was common to bring along personal staff with all the items needed for a comfortable stay. If people were away from home, inns, wine shops, and street vendors provided food.^[31] For example, when Cardinal Cibo was in Venice staying at the Ca’ Corner (September 23, 1518), “he went to dinner where he wished. It is believed that he went with his own people to the tavern.”^[32] Of course, one could choose to go out for a meal as the twenty-two members of the Compagnia of the Ortolani (Farmers) did after a procession around St. Mark’s Square and elsewhere during Carnival on February 4, 1524. They ended up at the Tavern of the Monkey where they had supper, while another group (the Compagnia of the Eterni—“the Eternals”), in 1508, went to the tavern of Campana at the Rialto.^[33] Compagnie were youth confraternities, mostly patricians, who were identified by their colorful stockings, whose primary purpose was to entertain; as well, they often sponsored banquets for various occasions.^[34]

Returning to the country estate, the main loggia of the villa usually looked out over the fields and gardens of the estate and was often the setting for a banquet for a small group of friends or for the family’s daily meal. Isabella d’Este’s agent in Rome wrote to her in June 1511 describing the life and entertainment offered by Pope Julius II to amuse her son Federico Gonzaga at the Villa Belvedere: “They ate in a very beautiful loggia looking out upon the whole plain . . . in that loggia, the rooms and gardens of orange trees and pines, every day is spent with greatest pleasure and entertainment . . . singers, musicians and jugglers . . . after this lovely diversion, they rose from the table and went out to enjoy those pleasant greenwards.”^[35] At the villa the meals echoed those in the city residences. But in less ostentatious country estates, the setting was more humble and the meals simpler and more rustic, often based on what the farm produced and what had been put up in the various storage rooms. Most estates had a forno for baking bread and roasting meat and reserves of salami and cheese. Fruit could be gathered from the orchard and vegetables from the garden, and if there was a pond, fresh fish could be caught; or, if there was a hunting park, fresh game could be killed for the evening meal. Both activities served a dual purpose: hunting and fishing were entertainment, leisure time activities and they both provided food for an upcoming meal. Farm animals such as pigs or sheep could be butchered and roasted on an open fire, and there was always an abundance of fowl.^[36] Tables and benches could easily be set up for dining outdoors; however, the elaborate table settings and the performance at the credenza so typical of the city banquet would not have been a part of the table service, in part because fewer staff came along to service the table and the kitchens were often smaller and less adequately equipped. It was informal in the country, relaxed, a time of leisure and enjoyment; it was a retreat from the cares and stress of city life. And even the country peasants benefited to a certain extent; unlike their city counterparts, food was more abundant, yet farm work was more strenuous and more labor intensive than work in the city.

Some outdoor meals took place on the water. On his way to Venice along the Po River, Alfonso II d’Este (1533–1597), the last duke of Ferrara who preferred courtly entertainment to diplomacy and war, stopped along the way to host a meal (September 1560s).^[37] In advance of his arrival, four boats were already in place, one of which served as the dining room with tables arranged under a canopy. Another served as the kitchen, another as the credenza, and the final one for the wine service. When Alfonso arrived, the dining boat was already set with plates of fruits: various grapes, apples, celery, and almonds. Decorations included swags and garlands of flowers and greenery. The credenza was elaborately decorated with silver plate and was an impressive sight; the wine boat had not only wine, but glasses of gold and cristallo and flasks. As they were served their meal composed of two courses followed by fruit, they were entertained with musical performances. The first course of sixteen different dishes included figs on pastry leaves, plums Ferrarese style, boats made of marzipan, and stuffed veal tongue with a French sauce. Next came roasts (arrosti): sturgeon wrapped in lard, slices of roasted veal with a sauce of “uva passa” (raisins), frittele of ricotta and eggs, and small roasted birds—seventeen dishes in all. The final fruit course of sixteen dishes included figs in wine, cooked artichokes, pears, cardoons, fennel, truffles, and almonds. Once the meal was finished, Alfonso and his guests returned to their boat and continued on their journey with the other boats following. This seating chart (see figure 5.4) for a 1579 banquet held on a Gonzaga boat characterized as being “like a palace” for the archdukes Ferdinand and Maximillian von Hapsburg gives us a sense of how Alfonso’s boat might have been organized.

While Alfonso stopped for a meal on his way to Venice, in that city it was not uncommon for meals to take place on the Grand Canal. In his diaries Marin Sanudo, the Venetian chronicler, recounted on several occasions that meals were served on barges on the canal such as the meal sponsored by the Compagnia of young men called “the Valorious” in honor of Francesco Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino and the captain general of the Venetian Republic, on July 3, 1524.^[38] They prepared two large fishing boats, covered with light sail cloth awnings and flags. They decorated the space below with tapestries and set out benches for women to sit on. In addition to the young men from the Compagnia and the captain general, della Rovere’s military officials, the ambassador of Milan, Piero Pesaro, and Domengo Zorzi were part of the festivities. They passed under the Rialto Bridge and stopped at San Simon to have dinner (at 10:30 p.m.) on flatboats. Plank boards had been arranged with tables on top so they could sit at table. The meal was prepared by the light of wax torches and lamps. After everyone ate, they danced and then went home.

An Evening at Belfiore

Let’s look in detail at an elaborate outdoor event recounted by Cristoforo da Messisbugo, steward to the Este family, in his Banchetti. Messisbugo included a detailed account of all that took place: the setting, the decoration of the space and the tables, and a complete menu for each course, a dazzling and even disconcerting catalog of excess. In honor of the 1528 marriage of his brother, Ercole II d’Este, duke of Chartres and future duke of Ferrara, to Renée of France, daughter of King Louis II and sister-in-law to his successor, Francis I, nineteen-year-old Ippolito, archbishop of Milan, held a banquet at Belfiore, one of the smaller, but elegant Este estates, a hunting lodge, on May 20, 1529.^[39] The banquet was a spectacularly grand affair held in Belfiore’s superb gardens. The day was a fast day, the feast of St. Bernardino, so the menu consisted of fish rather than meat.^[40] The guests spent the afternoon watching a display of jousting before going to the palace and into the saletta to watch a farce and listen to a short concert of diverse voices and a variety of instruments. Then they went out into the garden for dinner. In the cool of the early evening, swags of flowers decorated with Este devices hung from the trees. Musicians played in a bower constructed to hide them and under a canopy decorated with festoons of greenery. The fifty-four guests were led out by four young men and four young women who danced their way across the torch-lit gardens to the head table (the meal began at 10 p.m. and ended around 5 a.m). Under the lavishly decorated loggia, the credenza glittered with silverware and everything necessary for dinner service. Next to it stood a table laden with a variety of fine wines. The dining tables were covered with three layers of white linen tablecloths, one atop the other, and beside each place there was a napkin artfully folded into one of several shapes, a knife, and a bread roll. Decorating the table were scattered flowers, miniature emblems of the Este coat of arms, saltcellars, and fifteen large (three palmi in height) gilded and colorful sugar sculptures: five figures each of Venus, Bacchus, and Cupid. Once the guests were seated, they were handed bowls of scented water to wash their hands before starting on the cold course from the credenza: salads of anchovies, of asparagus, of artichokes, and of herbs garnished with festively cut lemons; marzipan biscuits; and pastries stuffed with sturgeon. There were eighteen courses to follow, none of them very large, but all exquisitely presented and each accompanied by a different entertainment. Each course consisted of seven or eight different dishes, which meant a lot of work for the men serving the banquet and an awesome undertaking for the cooks sweating away in the kitchens.

The first course was served ceremoniously with loud, dramatic music played by three trombones and three horns. Its centerpiece was an enormous boiled sturgeon, decorated with Ippolito’s own coat of arms picked out in garlic and red sauce; other dishes included “pastelli” of trout, fried orate, and small fried fish from the Po River. The second course, eaten to the sound of lighter music played on the flute and oboe, included pike strewn with little blue borage flowers, tench dressed alla Francese in honor of Renée, and rombo served with lemon slices. Instrumental music continued until the fifth course, when clowns and tumblers capered around the tables, followed by singers and dancers. During the ninth course, which consisted simply of one thousand oysters served with plates of oranges and pears, the pipers started to play. Everyone thought the meal was over, but then the stewards removed the first layer of tablecloths, napkins, and sugar sculptures and re-laid the tables. This time the centerpieces were fifteen nudes, eight men and seven women made of black biscuit (“pasta di sosameli”) flavored with honey and sesame, their gilded heads garlanded with bay leaves, and “the parts normally hidden,” covered with flowers and greenery. The diners started again with salads, this time served with caviar, to the sound of a solo bassoonist. So it went on and on: sturgeon and cuttlefish arrived to the accompaniment of a lutenist singing a madrigal; fried squid, crayfish in a French sauce, and macaroni alla Napolitana to the sound of singers dressed as peasants pretending to cut the grass in the garden. The fish finally stopped at the seventeenth course when fresh fava beans and Parmesan cheese, cherries, raw artichokes, and a pudding were served. After this course, a second layer of tablecloths were removed and the tables re-laid. The stewards then brought out perfumed toothpicks and more bowls of scented water for the guests to wash their hands. The final course—candied fruits, candied lettuce and cucumbers, and sweets and cakes—was accompanied by a small chamber ensemble and six singers singing motets and madrigals, conducted by Duke Alfonso’s composer, Alfonso della Viola. To end the meal, Ippolito gave his guests presents: necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, and perfumed gloves, distributed from a vast silver bowl (“una navicella d’argento”). As a grand finale, twenty-four musicians appeared from the canopied bower, dressed alike and each holding a blazing torch; they danced a moresca to signal the end of the evening.

Women and Private Dining

Evidence from household inventories suggests that many women had private dining areas and kitchens adjacent to their private apartments for their own use. The 1576 household inventory of Alfonso Sanvitale and Gerolama Farnese-Sanvitale’s home in Parma, for example, noted such rooms. Between Gerolama’s rooms and those of their daughter, Margarita, were the kitchenette (“una camera delle donne, detta la cucinetta”) and a room where they ate (“una camera dovi si mangia”)—the former had a fireplace and cooking equipment.^[41] Gerolama Farnese-Sanvitale hosted an informal dinner for a small group of women friends in the rooms that adjoined her apartments and those of her daughter, Margarita, who sang for the guests. In her 1573 letter to Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, Gerolama thanked Ottavio for lending her his musician (who trained Margarita) and also told him of the success of the event.^[42] Outside Rome, at Stabia, Maddelena Strozzi-Anguillara’s apartments followed a similar arrangement of rooms with those of her daughter, Clarice. Costanza Bentivoglio Savelli’s private apartment on the piano nobile of the Palazzo Savelli in Rome was more elaborate than either of those discussed above and included “sala della Illustrious Signora,” “camera deli destri” (latrine), “una camera grande,” “un studiolo” (study), two more smaller rooms followed by a kitchen, next to which was a small dispensa near the upper loggia and the staircase.^[43] Allowing for more privacy, Eleonora Fieschi had, as part of her apartments, a saletta with a table for eating and a second table serving as a credenza.^[44] Her female attendants ate in the “camera delle donne” next door. Bonamaria Pallavicina had not only “una saletta dove mangiava la Madonna” (where she ate) with two tables with folding legs and a credenza with a superb service of silver plate, but also a small kitchen next door.^[45]

In her three-room apartment at Bracciano, Francesca Sforza’s antechamber had a table for eating (“una tavola per mangiare”) as did her camerino—perhaps, one room for eating with guests and the other when she wished to dine alone. On May 13, 1539, Francesca decided to have a meal in her private apartments.^[46] Accordingly, her credenziero, Jacopo della Rocca Montegagono, requested a number of items from Luca Vergallitti, the quartermaster (dispensiero) at Bracciano: items for dinner service and setting up tables for serving food. He asked for cups, plates, bowls, glasses, tablecloths, and napkins; Francesca had her own set of cutlery, each with intricately worked handles kept in a leather case. As well, the man in charge of the wine cellar, Benedetto da San Miniato, gave her wine steward, Giovanni Michele, five bottles of wine—was she eating alone or with a few guests? She had her own personal cook. Women frequently ate their everyday meals in these rooms, joining their husbands only for special banquets or when important guests were present. Young children also ate their meals in similar rooms away from adults.^[47]

This is not to say that men did not dine in the antechamber of their apartments either alone (as Ludovico il Moro did), with their wives (as Jacopo Matteo did), or with guests (as Ippolito d’Este did); the evidence suggests, however, that this was common practice for women, but not necessarily so for men.^[48] Upper-class women’s daily lives were generally not involved with those of their husbands; rather, they were surrounded by women companions. They had their own servants and their own funds. Women often had separate kitchens, and separate accounts were kept for supplies of food and accessories for serving a meal.^[49] Yet, Ludovico il Moro often ate his daily meals, alone or with a few guests, in the antechamber of his private apartment; his private kitchen was not far away.^[50] His table was covered with a rug and then a white tablecloth of fine linen from Rheims, and the room was decorated with tapestries. He was served course by course as if it were a banquet by his personal steward, trinciante (carver), and cook. Although letters provide some insight into informal dining, the everyday meal, where it took place, what food was prepared and eaten, and daily dining remain illusive—images, documents, and treatises tell us little, and we are left to wonder about those daily meals.

Where Did the Middle Class and Servants Eat?

In contrast to the elite households of Rome, Bologna, and Parma, in the modest middle-class homes in Genoa, the family ate their meals in the caminata (named for the fireplace); yet, like the sala, it was a versatile room where women attended to their work and where guests were received.^[51] Like the sala, it was the largest room in the house. Dinnerware, serving bowls, and utensils were stored in the credenza, and the room (mezzanine) above the caminata held tables, chairs, benches, and candelabras. A small kitchen was nearby next to the pantry (dispensa), and in some instances, a small wine cellar followed down a narrow stairway. As elsewhere in Italy, in lower-working-class homes, the caminata and kitchen were one and the same room with the cooking taking place in the fireplace and a small table set up for eating nearby. Often, if they did not eat at home or did not have a kitchen or fireplace in which to cook, inns, wine shops, and street vendors provided food; these were common sources for a meal for the lower classes.^[52] In contrast to the upper and middle classes, meals were unlikely to be an obligatory domestic ritual.^[53]

While we may not know exactly where the elite might take their meals, we do know where their staff ate. Nearly every household had at least one tinello (staff dining room), generally, a spacious room with tables and benches, sideboards, and all that was necessary for a meal. Often, the running of the tinello was governed by a set of rules, just as the staffing and running of the rest of the household was. In the Ordine from Urbino that we have already discussed, a special chapter outlined not only the staffing of the tinello, but also its structure, which should be made up of two separate but communicating rooms with the same staff for both.^[54] Serving in the tinello was a steward (“scalco della famiglia”) and under him were one or two cooks, one or two people to set the table, and one or two people to serve the wine. Even here, the hand washing ceremony was equally as important as at the ducal table, and the entire meal service was governed by the same rules as for the duke. At Ferrara, Ippolito d’Este’s household staff all ate together in the staff dining room, whereas the stable boys made their own eating arrangements.^[55] The staff dining room was near the kitchen and had three large cloth windows and a fireplace. The room was divided in two by a brick screen allowing the courtiers and senior valets their own space. Arcangelo laid the tables in the staff dining room, using plain white tablecloths and napkins, and he was also responsible for clearing the tables and cleaning up afterward. In the 1560 Aldobrandi-Marescotti inventory of their house in Bologna, a “tinello delle donne” (women’s dining room) was separated from the “tinello degli huomini” (men’s dining room) by a kitchen.^[56] This is where the household retainers, who lived in the house, ate their meals. The household servants ate in the “tinello dal li servitore” (servant’s dining room), which was nearby. Similarly, in Jacopo Matteo’s house in Rome (1566), the “tinello grande da basso” (large, lower staff dining room) held tables and chairs, and was near the kitchen—men were not separated from women—while the “tinello di servitore” (servants’ dining room) was next to the “camera di staffieri” (footmen’s dining room) and the “dispensa di basso” (lower pantry).^[57] Like so many others, the Medici provided a room for staff meals (“saletta dove mangiano il staffieri e il servitore”) in their palazzo in Florence; surely they did the same at their country estates.^[58]

The Dining Table: Seating Arrangements

Who decided who ate at which table and where they were seated? Who was likely to sit at the head table? As with everything else to do with fine dining, protocol, status, etiquette, and the number of guests determined who sat at which tables. Surely the host of the event worked closely with the head steward to make the appropriate arrangements, taking care not to make offense and not to snub some future ally. Traditionally those seated to the right of the honored guest were the more privileged while those to the left were lesser in status; this ritual can be traced back to images of Christ and the Apostles or Christ flanked by saints from early Christianity. At the 1473 banquet in Rome held by Pietro Riario, cardinal of San Sisto, in honor of Eleonora, daughter of Fernando I of Aragon, king of Naples, Eleonora was seated in the center. To her right sat Cardinal Riario, the duke of Andri, and Count Girolamo, Riario’s brother; to her left sat Signore Sigismondo, the duchess of Amalfi, and Alberto di Traverso (see figures 5.2 and 6.1 for examples of seating arrangements).^[59] The number of guests determined the number of tables and benches that needed to be brought into the sala; if it were a large event, less important guests might eat at tables in adjacent rooms as we saw on the occasion of a banquet held in honor of Pope Sixtus V at Castel Gandolfo in 1589 and at the 1466 Medici wedding in Florence, which we discussed in chapter 2.

Diners usually sat against the wall, along one side of a long table. The guest of honor—whether a pope, ruler, or bride and groom—sat at the end of the room at the head table, which was often raised on a dais. Sometimes a ruler or pope ate alone at the head table or was flanked by privileged individuals. Other tables were set up along the walls to form a u-shape. This arrangement allowed for the procession of each course to be brought in and served from the center of the space and for the entertainments during the courses. Rossetti, who traveled throughout Europe with his Este employers, proposed other table arrangements. He noted that guests were seated around a number of small square or round tables with the main dish in the center, surrounded by smaller ones. He described a domestic dinner in the “German style” for Duke Alfonso d’Este and a few friends seated around a square table, in the center of which was the main dish of several steamed fish, each in its own sauce and surrounded by smaller accompanying dishes: snails in sauce, small sturgeon pastries, pureed chickpeas, and stuffed squid in broth (all of which were placed on small pieces of bread).^[60] The meal continued with several more courses, but what is important for us here is the change from the usual array of dishes placed on a long trestle table according to the importance of the guests.

Marin Sanudo’s description of a feast held by Cardinal Grimani on May 25, 1523, in his palace in Rome (now the Palazzo Venezia) is enlightening:

Letters often provide us with details about seating arrangements. Bernardino Prosperi, writing to Isabella d’Este about a banquet he attended in 1513, listed all who attended and where they sat. At the head table, Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519), duchess of Ferrara, sat with her host, Antonio Costabili, and next to them sat Prospero Colona and his wife Dona Angiola, along with nine other privileged individuals. At the next table, the named guests included Costabili’s wife Paola. Other tables some distance away from the other two were reserved for less privileged guests, while more tables were set up in other spaces.^[62] In a letter (from Naples) to her husband in 1514, Isabella herself noted who was seated at her table; next to her sat Fabrizio Colonna, her host, then the marchesa of Massa, Madonna Diana d’Este, Messer Giulio Nastro, and Messer Paolo Somenza.^[63] Fabrizio’s son acted as her steward, serving her with ceremony and diligence.

The Presence of Women

Certainly, women were present during wedding banquets and similar celebrations as we can see in Veronese’s Marriage at Cana (see figure 5.2)^[64] or in descriptions like that of Ippolito d’Este’s first banquet held at the Palazzo San Francesco in Ferrara in 1536. Held in honor of his aunt, the sixty-one-year-old Isabella d’Este, other guests included his brothers Francesco and Ercole, and the latter’s wife, Renée of France.^[65] They dined in the sala grande, which was lavishly decorated for the feast. While writers such as Cristoforo da Messisbugo, steward at the Este court, give us a detailed description of everything needed for a grand banquet or a special occasion such as a wedding and list important guests including women, they do not tell us if the women sat with the men or what the actual dining arrangements were.

Letters provide us with some insight into just who was present at specific events and often discuss who sat where and with whom. Banquets at the Palazzo del Te in the 1560s, whether weddings or other special events, included both men and women; however, more often than not, the women sat separately from the men.^[66] While she was in Rome on November 15, 1525, Isabella d’Este attended a dinner at Giovanni Antonio da Viterbo’s house to celebrate a wedding for one of Gregorio Casali’s sisters.^[67] It was a lavish banquet with five large tables well laid out: one table was only for women; the others were for the men—this was considered the Roman way. On the other hand, in 1514, Isabella d’Este wrote to her husband from Naples about a banquet she attended, “We went to dinner at 9 p.m. . . . at our table there was a large number of men and women (un grandissimo numero de signori e signore).”^[68] So they sat together; she does not say much about the meal except that it was sumptuous and “bella.” On another occasion, Bernardino Prosperi wrote to Isabella about a banquet hosted by Antonio Costabili for Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara, and Prospero Colonna on April 1, 1513; at the duchess’s table there was a mix of men and women.^[69] Yet at a diplomatic dinner during the papal court’s visit to Bologna in 1529–1530 for Charles V’s coronation held at Gregorio Casali’s home, women were seated in between the men.^[70] As is so often the case, Venice seems to be the exception. In nearly every instance recorded by Marin Sanudo in his diaries, he mentioned the presence of women dining alongside men; of course, Venice was noted for its beautiful women, who were expected to be present as part of the decoration (with their display of jewelry and costly attire) and entertainment.^[71] Most were literate and valued for their conversational abilities and musical talents, among other things. On one occasion, Sanudo noted that “[f]orty or more of the most beautiful women of the city had been invited; they were dressed in trimmed and quartered cloth of gold and in silk.”^[72] And when it came time for dinner at Marco Antonio Venier’s house (January 15, 1521), these women ate along with the gentlemen either in rooms off the portego or in the portego itself, depending on their status; some were accompanied by their husbands, others were not. While there does not seem to be any set protocol for seating arrangements at banquets in most cities, in the sixteenth century, the situation seems to be more relaxed at the country villa, with men and women intermingling. Agostino Gallo noted that women sat alongside men while eating freshly caught fish that had been cooked for them.^[73]

Table Settings and Decoration

Tables were covered with several tablecloths, sometimes with thin leather sheets in between each layer to keep the lower cloths clean. Periodically, the soiled cloth was removed to reveal a clean white one; the table was re-laid with saltcellars, fresh bread, clean napkins, plates, and silverware. The guests were offered perfumed water to wash their hands. Toothpicks of fragrant sticks such as rosemary were also set out on the table. Luxurious eating vessels and elaborate platters, use of a coaster (sotto coppa), better cuts of meat, and covers for food were signs of distinction. Messisbugo, for example, suggested silver ewers and basins for the most important tables, bronze ones for the others. The Este family, known for their lavish spending, transformed their exquisitely damask-clothed tables with the glitter of Cellini gold and Murano glass, a Venetian specialty, and the conspicuous use of sugar sculpture.^[75] Since antiquity food had been eaten with the fingers, accompanied by elaborate cleansing rituals; spoons, forks, and knives were used more often for preparing and serving food than for eating. While in the Middle Ages, pieces of meat were either eaten with the fingers or speared with a knife, by the sixteenth century a small, straight-tined fork was introduced enabling diners to steady their meat portions while cutting bite-sized pieces. Frequently, guests brought their personal utensils with them to the table, enclosed in specially designed carrying boxes. Indeed, exquisite two-tined dinner forks with precious handles of cast and chased silver or gold, carved ivory, rock crystal, or coral often set with precious gems were carried as an accessory. Novel practices of eating with forks instead of fingers and individual places, rather than sharing communal dishes of food became commonplace. Sixteenth-century diners no longer ate off bread trenchers even with wood or pewter liners; now each guest had an individual dinner plate of silver or even gold, but for a simpler meal or country dining, maiolica, tin-glazed earthenware was used (see figure 2.3 for an example). It was usually boldly colored and often quite opulent. Almost any type of object could be made of silver: cups, bowls, dishes, square trays, saltcellars, buckets, and cutlery.^[76] Silver forks, in particular, often sets of twelve, were found in many inventories, including those of the Orsini family and even in middle-class households. They were a symbol of sophistication. Florence silk merchant Giannozzo Pandolfini purchased a set of twelve silver forks and spoons in 1475. He paid the princely sum of over 20 florins.^[77] One could also borrow or rent silverware to bolster status at special banquets.^[78]

Banquets were visual and tactile orchestrations of food and luxurious appointments. Vessels of silver and gold, maiolica and porcelain, and glass and crystal were ornamented with colored enamels and hard stones, as well as ivory, coral, and even seashells. Napkins were intricately folded into the shape of arches and columns, and animals and figures. Banquets combined culinary and non-culinary arts with scenographic flair to impress and astonish guests. Cooked animals were brought to the table with skin and feathers intact and posed as if alive, sometimes in landscape settings, and live animals were secreted in cooked pastries, all reminiscent of Maestro Martino (see figure 1.1). At a banquet hosted by Cardinal Domenico Grimani in Rome (May 16, 1505), two pheasants and a peacock were served on a platter, each with its neck and tail dressed with its own feathers, and the breasts were fully gilded.^[79] Food was not only heavily spiced and sauced but also colored and gilded with silver or gold leaf, as we’ve just seen, or the food was sculpted into shapes of animals, figures and architecture. By the sixteenth century, these sculptures were often made of sugar, as we will see shortly. For a banquet for the Florentine “Company of the Cauldron” (del Paiuolo), a culinary society of twelve artists, the painter Andrea del Sarto constructed an octagonal temple, similar to that of San Giovanni, the baptistery in Florence, but with raised columns.^[80] It had a gelatin mosaic floor, sausage “porphyry” columns with Parmigiano cheese bases and capitals, and sugar cornices. The tribune was made of sections of marzipan. Inside, a choir of cooked, open-beaked song birds (thrushes) surrounded a cold veal lectern and music sheets of lasagna marked with pepper grain notes. Each member of this company was required to bring a dish of his own whimsical invention to the home of their lord. The sculptor and architect Giovanni Francesco Rustici made a cauldron in the form of a pie in which Ulysses dipped his father in order to make him young again; the two figures were formed from boiled capons. Domenico Puligo, a painter, made a serving girl with a distaff at her side from a cooked suckling pig. The meal itself took place in an immense cauldron made from a vat within which the twelve sat at table. The walls were adorned with hangings and paintings; there was music, and servants poured out the choicest wines. Rustici belonged to another culinary company or dining club—the Company of the Trowel, whose members did equally eccentric things with food.

The Art of Sugar Sculpture

In the sixteenth century, sugar was no longer simply a condiment used in combination with salt and a wide range of spices, as it had been in the Middle Ages.^[81] Now it acquired star status because of the increase in the cultivation of sugar cane in Portugal, the Canary Islands, Brazil, and the Caribbean with Spanish and English colonial expansion in the late fifteenth century. By the end of the century, pastry cooks were fashioning sculptures from solidified sugar syrup or sometimes using molds and then chiseling the sugar into shape. They were fragile structures that could decompose easily. Tall constructions could collapse under their own weight, even if supported by wires. The sugar was beige in color unlike our refined white sugar, so sugar artists or pastry cooks added color from saffron for gold or herb extracts for green, which would have made the sculptures even more fragile (see figure 5.5, an engraving of the sugar sculptures for the wedding banquet of Johan Wilhelm of Julich, Cleve, and Berg, and Jacoba of Baden, held at Dusseldorf on June 16, 1585). By the mid-sixteenth-century, household staff set aside rooms for sugar creations in preparation for their triumphal entry into the dining room.

In 1473, Bernardino Corio (1459–1519), a chronicler from Milan in service of the Sforza family, described in great detail the events surrounding the banquet, in Rome, for Eleonora of Aragon, daughter of Fernando I, king of Naples, and future duchess of Ferrara, including the sugar sculptures. He noted

Even Marin Sanudo, writing in Venice, was impressed with the sugar creations at the Ca’ Pesaro following a dinner for the duke of Milan on October 31, 1530; each guest received their own personal sculpture: the first was for the duke and it was of Leonardo Pesaro “decorated with a large St. Mark’s lion and the Visconti snake with a Guelf in its mouth. Then came the doge’s sweet, a large St. Mark’s lion bearing the Gritti coat of arms and the ducal corno. Then there were seven St. Mark’s lions . . . various kinds of sugared meringues . . . and other animals made of sugar and various confections: cookies, pine-nut cakes, [and] filled pastries.”^[83]

Serving the Meal

Like so much of what we have been discussing, table service was also codified; staff observed proper etiquette for serving a meal. Giovanni Battista Rossetti, Domenico Romoli, Vincenzo Cervio, and others go beyond specific duties expanding on the manner of presentation: how to properly pour and serve a glass of wine, how to arrange and decorate food on a plate, and then how it was to be brought to the table. Proper attire and deportment were key issues in the discourse as well. No aspect of table service was overlooked from washing hands to cleaning up at the end of the meal. Domenico Romoli went into some detail regarding table service from how the table should be set to the timing of dishes from the kitchen to the table; each participant’s role in the success of the meal was given attention.^[84] Likewise at the court of Urbino, codified in chapters 5 and 8 of the Ordine, we see similar concerns.^[85] On the one hand, Vincenzo Cervio outlined just how women should be served—from how to set up and decorate a table in the garden with the appropriate festoons and garlands overhead to meal service to the credenziero’s role; he described the requirements according to the season to create an intimate and welcoming space with the appealing views.^[86] On the other hand, Cristoforo da Messisbugo, who outlined in detail several mouthwatering meals, including how the tables were decorated, the food that was served, and the entertainments, did not talk specifically about the finer aspects of serving at table. Luigi Strada, describing a 1517 banquet held for Bona Sforza, the future queen of Poland, gives us a sense of the servants’ role at the banquet: “A comfortable table surrounded by polite and gallant servers, who with their silver platters await the dainty and delicate meat carved by a dexterous and attentive master carver.”^[87] The agile deportment of the carver meant that the guests had to do very little, since, like the wine, the food was presented ready to enjoy.

Banquets were carefully choreographed. Processions of food, preceded by the steward, were heralded by fife and trumpet. At the wedding feast of Annibale Bentivoglio and Lucrezia d’Este in Bologna, in 1487, the dishes of food were paraded before the populace in the piazza outside the castle. Meals, especially feasts, often began with expensive candied fruit. Food was presented in an alternating sequence of cold dishes from the credenza and hot courses from the kitchen. Hot food was delivered from the kitchen in carrying boxes. Courses of cold foods consisted of sliced meats, oysters, salads, and other foods that were prepared on serving tables adjacent to the credenza. Each course contained a selection of six or more dishes to serve from two to four people. In a large palace, a separate room next to the sala was used by servants to put finishing touches on the food, such as warming a sauce, adjusting elaborate decoration, setting dishes afire that had to be carried flaming into the sala, and dealing with wine service. Within the sala itself, a credenza or sideboard was used for the preparation of cold foods such as salads, with storage space for all that was needed to set the table, and it could also hold an impressive array of silver plate. Credenze were draped with snow-white cloths and became the epicenter of dining operations and were always placed within sight of the host and guests.^[88] But what about all the people who are part of the orchestration of the banquet, but not actually eating, and the disturbance they may cause? Cervio discusses how to avoid confusion at all large entertainments and suggests a way of dealing with the crowds of servants, onlookers who might be part of the entourage, and hangers-on who came to watch the spectacle.^[89] His solution was to usher the crowds toward a buffet meal in adjoining rooms, from which there was no way to return to the banquet area, providing generous provisions for all the servants involved in the smooth running of the event and refreshments for the others at an even greater distance away.

A Steward’s View

Cristoforo da Messisbugo was not the only steward who gave a detailed account of meals and entertainment. Raynero di Fideli, a steward in the Grimani household, wrote a letter scrupulously describing the various entertainments and impressive feast, complete with successive dishes decorated with pennants of St. Mark (the symbol of Venice).^[90] On May 16, 1505, Cardinal Domenico Grimani invited the Venetian ambassadors and other gentlemen (seventy-four in all) to his palazzo (now the Palazzo Venezia), first for a tour and then dinner. They were seated according to rank on richly covered chairs of cloth of gold or crimson silk or green or purple velvet. All the chairs had heavy fringes and gold pommels nobly worked with sculpted foliage and friezes. To the sound of a wind ensemble and tambourines, rose and lavender waters were brought in basins and vessels of gold and silver so they could wash their hands. Once everyone was seated at the table, the first course was ordered by ser Zuan Bolognese, the cardinal’s personal steward, who organized and presented the meal. Candied fruit appeared on plates of gold and silver decorated with flowers and roses: squash, citrons, lemons, and muscat pears. Muscatel wine was served and a wind band entertained. Eighteen silver and gold sweet platters filled with seventy-four gilded pine-nut cakes and the cookies eaten with them were carried in to the sound of tambourines and harps. Each ambassador received a dish of whipped cream with sugar and rose water, while the others had to share a dish with another person, to the accompaniment of soft music.

Eighteen to seventy-four dishes made up each course; there were fourteen courses in all. They were served eighteen dishes of “suppe de duca,” with gilded sweetbreads and kid’s heads, each with its gold pennant bearing a St. Mark (lion) and the cardinal’s arms, accompanied by ceremonial trumpets. Seventy-four deep dishes of pullet prepared in the Catalan style, one dish per person, followed, while harps, cymbals, and stringed instruments played. Then the servers brought in eighteen dishes of small roasted meats, including ten quail, six pigeons, and six pullets per platter, with bitter oranges and cherries in the dish and flavored with “salsa bastarda” (a spicy sauce); they drank sweet San Severin wine to the accompaniment of more fine music until small casseroles with roast meats in a sauce were brought in silver and gold bowls, one bowl per person. Eighteen platters of medium-sized roast meats came next: two pheasants and one peacock per platter (served with a soup of broom flowers and flavored with salsa reale); each dish came with its own little pennant. For entertainment, buffoons made contorted movements with their bodies, mouths, eyes, and noses. They cavorted around and did many funny things that made people laugh. Next came eighteen dishes of a poultry stew, with eight pigeons per plate, served with sweet oranges and dry white wine, accompanied by two Spanish buffoons, carrying silver cymbals in their hands and improvising songs in competition with each other. The large roast meat course, brought in on eighteen platters, included ten pounds of veal rump, a kid, a mutton shoulder, two capons, and four pullets per platter, served with a spicy sauce, and a soup of new peas and sweet Grignano wine; the buffoons continued to entertain. Next the same cuts of meat were served boiled, with blancmange, lemons, a green sauce, and dry San Severin wine, with harp and viola music. Gilded preserved meats followed, and all the platters had similar pennants.

Eighteen platters of timbales, three to a platter, with lemons beaten with sugar and salt came next. More buffoons pantomimed a ball game without a ball to the delight of the guests. Eighteen plates of capons, four to a plate, two covered in white sauce with pomegranate seeds and two with purple sauce, with white Foligno confections and eighteen plates of large Bologna sausage, all gilded, with four sausages per plate followed. An Albanian buffoon, named Barleta, dressed in gold and carrying a drum with silver fittings, was accompanied by another who played a small viol. They sang sweet songs, and all the dishes bore the pennants described above. Next came eighteen plates of wild boar, roe deer, and hare, each with its pepper sauce and each with its pennant like the others while harps and viols played. Seventy-four cups of gilded gelatin and dry Corso wine, with more sweet music followed; then came eighteen plates of brightly colored cakes with fresh beans and both cooked and raw artichokes, together with pepper and Sardinian cheese on plates of gold and silver. Each had a pennant and was garnished with fresh fennel and candied fennel on saucers of gold and silver.

Whipped ricotta with sugar, rose water, and borage flowers followed, while two little boys dressed as shepherds appeared with them, carrying rustic cheeses, which they presented while reciting verses in praise of the cardinal and the ambassadors. Next came eighteen plates of marzipans and as many plates laden with candied peaches, each plate bearing a gilded pennant to the accompaniment of a refined moresca dance performed in a gallant style. Finally, towels were brought, and rose water dispensed for washing hands, to the sound of shawms, trumpets, and tambourines. Small confections were distributed: sugared coriander seeds from Palermo, gilded sugared cinnamon, melon seeds, anise seeds from Foligno, almonds, pine nuts, and cookies. Iebia and two companions, who played two large violas, performed to the great pleasure and appreciation of all.

The Orchestration of Dining

Many opportunities brought people together to dine—beyond everyday meals and intimate gatherings among friends—weddings, state visits by popes, emperors, and other dignitaries and grand entries offered a chance to host an elegant meal that was both about the food and politics; the profusion of food and drink signified the host’s magnificence, hospitality, and wealth. Banquets were grand theater, a microcosm of good society, a moment when social relationships were constructed through seating arrangements, congenial conversation, and civility. Renaissance banquets involved far more than just eating and drinking. They were designed to appeal as much to the eyes and ears as to the palate. Originality was crucial. The artistry of the table decorations and the subtle skill with which the cook ornamented his dishes mattered just as much as the food. A banquet also involved entertainments chosen, just like the wine, to suit each part of the menu. The musician in charge carefully orchestrated contrasts in mood and style: light popular madrigals, classical plays, elegant dancers, marital trumpets and pipes, or comic dwarves and buffoons. Cristoforo da Messisbugo not only described the meals he organized for the Este family, but gave details about the music that was performed at each course, both instrumental and vocal; he noted other productions, such as plays by Ruzzante and theatrical dances such as the galliard and moresca, meant to entertain, and social dancing by guests.^[91] Some banquets were true extravaganzas like the 1473 banquet held by Pietro Riario, cardinal of San Sisto, in honor of Eleonora, daughter of Fernando I of Aragon, king of Naples, as she passed through Rome on her way from Naples to Ferrara to meet her future husband, Ercole I d’Este (see the section titled “Ostentation in Rome” in this chapter).^[92]

Both servers and diners were actors playing roles of varying importance in a spectacle that also included fine speeches, sets, props, and a sophistication of dining habits.^[93] The grace with which the diners used their hands, taking food from a plate and placing it in their mouths, was part of the performance. Drinking red wine from the shallow bowls that were in fashion in the sixteenth century required poise and elegance on the part of the guest. The finesse required to handle the wide range of fragile crystal and precious cutlery demonstrated one’s mastery of courtly manners in the company of others. The talented carver (trinciante) had a special role, cutting the bread, fruit, meat, and fish at the credenza in full view of the diners. Carving was a demanding performance, not, as Cervio noted, for the faint of heart.^[94] Performing a ritual gesture, he carved the roasted fowl with his knife, raising the meat in the air with a fork, and then arranging the slices in a circular pattern, or he was expected to carve the meat in midair so that it fell on the plate in a decorative pattern of slices, providing both entertainment and service to the guests. Not just meats, but fruits—even artichokes—were raised up on a fork and sliced “in the air” in front of the banqueting guests, with portions falling onto the plate. Vessels in motion or at rest were meant to be enjoyed against an array of eye-catching gastronomic delights. Everything was conceived to overwhelm the senses in an ongoing show of colors punctuated by live performances and musical intermezzi. By stark contrast, the lower classes ate, not so much for sociability, but out of need. Simple meals made up of bread (bought at the local forno), a bit of meat (when they could afford it), and wine were most often purchased rather than cooked at home; their dwellings rarely had fireplaces for cooking, let alone a kitchen and storage rooms.^[95]

Often the festivities involved not just one meal, but a series of banquets, simpler meals, and entertainments that lasted over a few days. Let’s look briefly at the wedding between Giulio Thiene, count of Scandiano, and Leonora Sanvitale (ca. 1558–1582), daughter of Giberto IV Sanvitale (d. 1570), count of Sala at Scandiano, in January 1576.^[96] Timed to coincide with the Ferrarese carnevale, the festivities took place over the course of seven days beginning with a banquet on Sunday evening and ending the following Saturday evening. While seemingly a marriage between minor nobility, the union carried a greater significance. Giulio Thiene was one of the most eminent of Duke Alfonso II d’Este’s courtiers. Leonora’s stepmother, Barbara Sanseverina, countess of Colorno, was responsible for her education, including music.^[97] By the age of fourteen, Leonora was noted for her elegant orations in Latin and letters. More important, especially for Alfonso, Leonora could sing—indeed, once married and at the court of Ferrara, she joined the “illustrious singing ladies” at the Este court and was regularly reported performing there. Without a doubt, Alfonso had a hand in promoting the marriage between Giulio and Leonora. The menus for all the meals—seven banquets and six desinar—were recorded by Giovanni Battista Rossetti.^[98] Unlike Cristoforo da Messisbugo, who gave full details of the banquets he arranged, Rossetti focused on the menus with only snippets here and there about the table settings and entertainments. And unlike the Riario banquet for Eleonora of Aragon (see the section titled “Ostentation in Rome” in this chapter), there is no other existing documentary evidence to tell us about these events; rather, the literature focuses on Leonora Sanvitale, the singer.

So let’s see what Rossetti had to say. Curiously, though the meals began with a cold service, it generally came from the kitchen; Rossetti does not mention credenza courses at all. Each meal consisted of four or five courses, but with numerous dishes in each course. Throughout the festivities, the servers wore Giulio Theine’s livery. As was the case for all the meals, at Sunday’s dinner the dishes were brought to the sound of trumpets and tambourines and everything was beautifully decorated. The guests were served five different courses, beginning with sixteen dishes (eight plates each) of “arrosti”; not everything was roasted, but it was all cold, including roasted pheasants with their feet and with gilded laurel leaves, lettuce with anchovies, capons in “bianco” with gilded heads and feet, and salted buffalo tongue. Next came two courses from the kitchen, followed by a fruit course. The tablecloths were removed, water was brought for hand washing, and a cloth (“un mantil”) worked in flowers and little birds made by Giulio Bianchino was unveiled to the sound of trumpets and tambourines; more fruit and sweets were brought, totaling eighteen dishes in all. On Monday Alfonso II d’Este, Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma, and many “signore” joined the couple for lunch (desinar), and again the cold service came from the kitchen. Wild boar was the highlight of the meal, which consisted of wild boar in black broth (“brodo negro”) covered with pine-nut confetti, a pasticcio of wild boar served hot, and roast boar with its own sauce, as well as stuffed veal with cheese soup over it, various vegetables, and other things. The pattern remained much the same for the week, except that at Wednesday’s banquet, the guests were served eight “elephants” made of porchetta and cooked in the oven, with heads of “pastumo” and castles above made of a meat pasticcio; it was a beautiful thing to see. A variety of veal dishes, fowl, salads, vegetable dishes, and fruits were served.

For the fifth banquet and last to feature meat, Rossetti described the setting: on a table (clearly, a credenza of sorts), seven arches with three vaults each were constructed with compartments to hold the places. Various figures placed at the top and above the capitals of the columns were “amorini” in various poses and with many flowers. Part of the decoration included the coats of arms of the guests. Many tapestries with beautiful friezes of vegetables and fruits with the arms of the relatives of both the count and his bride decorated the walls of the room, strung with festoons and garlands. Just before the final course and after the tablecloths were removed and after the hand washing, seven large sugar statues made by Giulio Cesare were carried in. The remaining four meals on Friday and Saturday featured fish dishes. Most of the fish for the two lunches came from the sea, which were fried, roasted, cooked in soups, or stuffed in pastries; eel was a favorite. Fresh-water fish such as carp and trout were served at the evening meals. On Saturday night, the last evening of the festivities, just before the final course, servers brought in seven statues of Ottaviano (Duke Ottavio Farnese) in various poses and three on horseback made of sugar in Venice. The evening culminated in everyone dancing after which they were served a collation of wine, carp soup, salami, and sweets.

Given all this extravagance, Rossetti could also be inventive if a primary ingredient went missing. Such is the case with a Lenten meal for “Signor Lionel Lavegiolo on a Friday in March.”^[99] The table was covered with two tablecloths, pleated napkins, and floral decorations—nothing too elaborate. The menu was to be built around a large quantity of trout that never materialized. So Rossetti devised a five-course, fishless and dairy-less meal starting with a variety of salads: fresh chicory and young wild garlic, lettuce and spring onions, radishes with their leaves trimmed in gold, stuffed and fried artichokes decorated with gilt bay leaves, spinach tortelli covered with sugared anise seeds, ricotta made with almond milk sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, and dates and cherries cooked in trebbiano wine with cinnamon, among other things. Next came seventeen hot dishes including almond milk soup, a pasticcio of artichokes, macaroni served with a garlic sauce, spinach in a spicy sauce, a fava bean puree garnished with fried leeks, broccoli with a bitter orange sauce, fennel and mushroom soup, and rice with almond milk and sugar. In the next course, everything was fried: artichokes, stuffed and fried; frittelle (fritters) of bitter greens garnished with sprigs of tarragon and fried in batter; a frittelle of cardoons and mushrooms; parsnip torte surrounded by fried parsnip slices; and much more. Then came the fruit course: artichokes, cardoons, peas, chestnuts, truffles, almonds, and fennel; some dishes were cooked and some raw. Water was brought out to wash hands, the tablecloths were removed, and the final course was served: all manner of sweets including candied fruits and nuts and sugared nuts and spices. Rossetti devised a truly original feast that would satisfy the most decadent appetite.

Ostentation in Rome

The June 7, 1473, banquet held by Pietro Riario, cardinal of San Sisto, in honor of Eleonora, daughter of Fernando I of Aragon, king of Naples, as she passed through Rome on her way from Naples to Ferrara to meet her future husband, Ercole I d’Este, is well documented. Not only did Bernardino Corio, the chronicler in service of the Sforza family describe it in detail, Eleonora wrote a lengthy letter giving full details that vary somewhat from Corio’s. Moreover, others including Costantino Corvisieri and Ludwig Pastor used it as an example of extravagance in papal Rome.^[100] Because of the muggy weather of the Roman summer, Cardinal Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, had the entire piazza in front of his residence at Piazza SS Apostoli covered with an immense tent made of Genovese sails, held up by ropes that departed from an extremely high antenna erected in the middle; below that was a delightful fountain that flowed from above. The roof of the long portico of Palazzo Riario (now Palazzo Altemps) was removed and above it was placed a magnificent loggia of antique style partitioned with columns decorated with leaves and flowers. The loggia was divided into three rooms. The largest, the banquet room, was covered with a blue sky, against whose pale color a white cross stood out in the middle and was hung with marvelous tapestries depicting the creation of the world; silk, damask, and gold brocade was lavished throughout the space. To refresh the air some bellows were hidden above, and for the same purpose a fountain of perfumed water had been set up, whose extremely fine spray was regulated for the delight of the guests. On the other side of the piazza, against the lower palazzo, rose the stage for dances and pantomimes. A company of players had been brought from distant countries to entertain the guests with the most celebrated singers.

At midday on Monday, the festivities started, lasting seven hours. The head steward and his two squadrons of servers were dressed in silk ornamented with gold chains, pearls, and precious gems; they changed their attire for each of the four courses. In the banquet room, there was a credenza with twelve shelves on which gem-studded trays of silver and gold were displayed, not unlike what we see in Giulio Romano’s fresco in the Palazzo del Te (see figure 5.6). Two tables covered with four tablecloths were prepared in the middle of the hall. At the first table, Eleonora sat with her host Girolamo and five other nobles of the highest rank, while the other table accommodated those of lower rank. What Corio called “covers”—that is, buns—were distributed throughout the table and wrapped in gold and silver leaves featuring the Riario coat of arms and those of the guest families. On the tables were cutlery, trenchers, saltcellars of sugar, bread and pine-nut tarts covered with gold, cups for wine, and glasses. The meal began with a collation of sweetmeats, oranges encrusted with sugar, and Malvasia wine, which the guests ate standing. Rose water was offered for washing hands, and the guests were seated to the sound of horns and pipes as the first dishes arrived. The first service combined pork livers, blancmange, meats with relish, tortes and pies, salt-cured pork loin, and sausage. Servers brought small roasted meats on large gold and silver platters (veal, kid, squab, chicken, and rabbit) formed into the story of Atlas and Hippomenes and Perseus liberating Andromeda, as well as whole roasted large game on gold and silver serving platters, including stags roasted whole and served in their skins, a bear with a staff in his jaws, and peacocks dressed in their feathers. Next came golden tortes, aspic in the form of Cardinal Riario’s coat of arms, and Muscat pears. All was served to the sounds of an entertainer, as Orpheus, singing various verses.

After the first course, the tablecloths were removed and the guests washed their hands in perfumed water. The table was re-laid with new trenchers, cups, goblets, cutlery, silver saltcellars, silvered bread, and fried dough in the shape of pine cones, smothered in honey and rose water. Ten basins (“confectere”) held ten ships of sugar, ten pine-nut tarts in the shape of fish, and Greek wine. The second course included cups of silver-wrapped lemons in sugar syrup, fish roasted in a sauce, roasted eel in a yellow sauce, three sturgeons, three round bowls with a pasticcio of silvered eel, and fish in aspic; lamprey was brought in by Cerere in her cart pulled by two eels. Perseus and Andromeda presented the food and sang various verses. Again, hands were washed, the second set of tablecloths were removed, and the table was set with cups, goblets, cutlery, gilded saltcellars, and gilded, diamond-shaped sugar. Ten “confectere” held sugar statues. The diners were served macerated cherries in Tyrian wine, chicken Catalan style, pastry goblets filled with live quail that flew around the room once opened, and green blancmange. Servers dressed as the mythological figures of Atlas, Hippomenes, Perseus, Venus, Hercules, Bacchus, and Ariadne presented large platters of roasted meat—suckling pig, mutton, veal, goat, roebuck, duck, and capons—while reciting verse.

Guests washed their hands, the third tablecloth was removed, and the tables were cleared; wine was placed on the tables. A procession of large sugar sculptures featuring Hercules and his labors began the last course (see the section titled “The Art of Sugar Sculpture” for a detailed description). While the guests were still eating, a mountain was carried in and a man jumped out who acted impressed with the banquet; he said some words, but not everyone understood. The sweets then followed: ices, rolled wafers, almonds, confetti from Foligno, coriander and anise seeds, and cinnamon and pine-nut tarts with wine. The evening concluded with the entrance of entertainers dressed as eight pairs of mythological figures who improvised dances and songs; there was a battle of Hercules and the Centaur and a representation of Bacchus and Ariadne—all to the accompaniment of music. Buffoons sang and performed. Everyone drank wine from golden goblets. And Eleonora received many marvelous gifts.

The Sociability of Dining

If actual dining spaces within the palazzo, especially the more intimate ones, are illusive, the actual sociability of dining, especially at grand and/or more formal banquets is not; most of the literature of the period, as we have seen, is about the organization and presentation of the food, which is tied to the sociability of dining, including the performance of serving a meal and the theatricality of presentation. We know to a certain extent what happened at the table, what was on the table, and what was expected of the guests. Banqueting was about the audience, stage sets, props, interludes, and putting on a good show.^[101] Platina noted that “we had a choice between eating, drinking, singing, or having a conversation. Now in itself none of these is better than any other: how it comes out depends on how it is performed.”^[102] Giovanni Pontano, writing in the 1490s, identified dining as one of the most important social activities.^[103] He used the term “conviviality” for the virtue of coming together in an atmosphere of familiarity to enjoy a meal. Dining was an expression of social aspirations, civility, and splendor. The banquet, a choreographed event, was a ritual of aristocratic hospitality communicating wealth and power. Thus, objects crafted in gold, silver, rock crystal, and hard stones contributed to the transformation of meals into extravaganzas.^[104] Table settings, for example, not the food, impressed the guests at a dinner in Rome in 1580. Each guest was provided with his own napkin, along with a knife, fork, spoon, and silver or earthenware plates, which was often historiated maiolica ware. The sociability of dining was part of the discourse on etiquette, display, and magnificence as codified by Pontano, Scappi, and others. Life in the kitchen was more than food preparation and service; it could become a theatrical performance and part of the art of fine dining.

As we move into the seventeenth century, we see that banquets became more refined with a greater sense of elegance. Rules and regulations for governing the staff and orchestrating the meal proliferated, becoming regimented. Overall, a greater sense of decorum pervaded, not just for those serving the meal but also for those eating it; there were now more formalized rules of etiquette for everyone. Changes in living arrangements affected where people ate—even the staff. Culinary treatises and cookbooks became manuals or guidebooks on how to run a household, how to set a table, and how to fold napkins, carve meat, serve a meal, and so on.

Sabine Eiche, ed., Ordine et officij de casa de lo illustrissimo signor duca de Urbino (Urbino: Accademia Raffaello, 1999), 90–92.

Ken Albala, The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 144.

Grazia Rossanigo and Pier Muggrati, Amandole e Malvasia per uso di corte, cibi e ricette per la tavola dei Duchi di Milano (Milan: Editorale Aisthesis, 1998), 11.

Domenico Romoli, called Il Panunto, La singolare dottrina (Venice: Giobattista Bonfadino, 1593), cc. 32v–127v.

Ibid., frontispiece.

Aggiunta fatta al Trinciante del Cervio, in Vincenzo Cervio, Il trinciante (Rome: Giulio Burchioni and Gabbia, 1593; originally published in Venice by Michele Tramezzino in 1581), 204.

Eiche, ed. Ordine, 93–94, 96–97, 126–27; Romoli in Emilio Faccioli, ed., L’arte della cucina in Italia, libri di ricette e trattati sulla civilita della tavola dal XIV al XIX secolo (Turin: Giulio Einauldi, Editore, 1987, 1992), ch. 8, 369–74; ch. 9, 374–75; and ch. 10, 375.

Vincenzo Cervio, Il trinciante (Rome: Giulio Burchioni and Gabbia, 1593; originally published in Venice by Michele Tramezzino in 1581), 4; Cervio in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 4, 493–94; and Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 13, 377–80.

Cervio, Il trinciante, 18–23.

10.

Eiche, ed., Ordine, ch. 8, 95; Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 4, 366–67; Giovanni Battista Rossetti, Dello scalco (Ferrara: Domenico Mammarello, 1584), bk. 1, ch. 10, 28–29.

11.

Eiche, ed., Ordine, ch. 8, 95.

12.

Ibid., 95.

13.

Cervio, Il trinciante, 16.

14.

Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 5, 368.

15.

Ibid., ch. 5, 366–68; Rossetti, Dello scalco, bk. 1, ch. 11, 29–30.

16.

Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 12, 377.

17.

Rossetti, Dello scalco, bk. 1, ch. 7, 20–21.

18.

Ibid., bk. 1, ch. 5, 18; Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, ch. 7, 369.

19.

Mary Hollingsworth, The Cardinal’s Hat: Money, Ambition, and Housekeeping in a Renaissance Court (London: Profile Books, 2004), 58–59.

20.

Patricia Fortini Brown, “The Venetian Casa,” in At Home in Renaissance Italy, ed. Marta Ajmar Wollheim and Flora Dennis (London: V & A Publications, 2006), 58.

21.

Marin Sanudo, Venice, Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the Renaissance Diaries, ed. Patricia H. Labalme and Laura Sanguineti White, trans. Linda L Carroll (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 291.

22.

Daniela Ferrari, ed., Giulio Romano, repertorio di fondo documentare (Mantua: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambienti, Ufficio Centrale per i Beni Archivistici, 1992), 1182.

23.

ASR, Archivio Sforza-Cesarini, b. 22, facs. 30a.

24.

Kathleen Weil-Garris and John F. D’Amico, “The Renaissance Cardinal’s Ideal Palace: A Chapter from Cortesi’s ‘De Cardinalatu,’” in Studies in Italian Art and Architecture, Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Henry A. Millon (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980), 81, 83.

25.

Bartolomeo Scappi, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L’arte et prudenza d’ un maestro cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook), trans. and with commentary by Terence Scully (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 381.

26.

Catherine Fletcher, “‘Un palaco belissimo’: Town and Country Living in Renaissance Bologna,” in The Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior, 1400–1700: Objects, Spaces and Domesticities, ed. Erin J. Campbell, Stephanie R. Miller, and Elizabeth Carroll Consavari (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2013), 22.

27.

David Coffin, The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 16. Agostino Gallo’s Le dieci giornate della vera agricoltura e piacere della villa (Venice: Giovanni Bariletto, 1566) adds insight into our understanding of villa life and how it was better to reside in the country rather than in the city. See as well, James Ackerman, The Villa, Form and Ideology of Country Houses (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 108–23.

28.

Scappi provides illustrations and instructions for setting up a traveling kitchen (Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570 ), 630–34, and illustrations 6, 17, and 24). As well, I have found numerous lists and inventories for food, equipment, and so on that was being packed up to take to the country (Archivio storico capitolino, Rome, Archivio Orsini [hereafter, ASCap, A.O.] serie I, bb. 412, 413, 414).

29.

ASCap, A.O., serie I, b. 414, parte I, #45.

30.

Ibid., b. 414, parte II, #159.

31.

Elizabeth S. Cohen and Thomas V. Cohen, Daily Life in Renaissance Italy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 224.

32.

Sanudo, Venice, 292.

33.

Ibid., 302, 516.

34.

Ibid., 545.

35.

Alessandro Luzio, “Federico Gonzaga ostaggio alle corte di Giulio II,” Archivio della R. societa Romana di storia patria 9 (1886): 513–14, 524.

36.

This information is gathered from a wide range of inventories, letters, and notary documents that I have collected from the state archives of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Ferrara, Mantua, Bologna, Rome, Venice, and Milan.

37.

Rossetti, Dello scalco, 387–89.

38.

Sanudo, Venice, 74–75.

39.

Hollingsworth, The Cardinal’s Hat, 19, 21–23.

40.

Cristoforo da Messisbugo, Banchetti, composizioni di vivande e apparecchio generale, ed. Fernando Bandini (Ferrara: Giovanni de Bugehat and Antonio Hucher, 1549; repr., Venice: Neri Pozza, Editore, 1960), 31–41.

41.

ASP, Famiglia Sanvitale, Patrimonio familiare, b. 28, DII 944.

42.

ASP, Carteggio Farnesiano interno, b. 62, 1573, 15 July.

43.

ASR, Archivio Sforza-Cesarini, b. 19, fasc. 21. The inventory dates September 10, 1563.

44.

“Per la credenza,” Antonio Manno, Arredi et armi di Sinibaldo Fieschi, da un inventario del 1532 (Genoa: np, 1876); Peter Thornton, The Italian Renaissance Interior (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), 291.

45.

ASP, Famiglia Pallavicini, b. 5, 1522, 18 September.

46.

ASCap, A.O., b. 414, parte 2, #151.

47.

ASP, Famiglia Sanvitale, Patrimonio familiare, b. 27, DII 861; Famiglia Pallavicina, b. 5, 1522, 18 September.

48.

Patricia Waddy notes the protocol of dining with the cardinal involved eating in his anticamera with guests (Patricia Waddy, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces: Use and the Art of the Plan [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990], 6). See also Thornton, The Italian Renaissance Interior, 294–95, where he notes that informal meals could take place in the anticamera.

49.

Waddy, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces, 26; The account books of Maddelena Strozzi Anguillara and Giacoma Pallavicina detail the expenditures for kitchen supplies, including food. See: ASR, Congregazione religiose feminile, cistercensi, Sta Susanna, b. 4442; Busseto, Biblioteca, Archivio Pallavicino, bb. 39–43; and ASP, Notai, bb. 1989–1992.

50.

Rossanigo and Muggrati, Amandole e Malvasia, 11–12.

51.

Emilio Pandiani, Vita private Genovese nel Rinascimento (Genoa: Tipografia Nazionale di Luigi Sambolino, 1915), 70, 237, 247.

52.

Cohen and Cohen, Daily Life, 224.

53.

Sandra Cavallo, “The Artisan’s Casa,” in At Home in Renaissance Italy, ed. Marta Ajmar Wollheim and Flora Dennis (London: V & A Publications, 2006), 29.

54.

Eiche, ed., Ordine, ch. 23.

55.

Hollingsworth, The Cardinal’s Hat, 58.

56.

I would like to thank Joyce de Vries for sharing her research from the Archivio di Stato in Bologna with me.

57.

This material was gathered from a range of inventories that I have collected from various archives throughout Italy, see note 36 above; most inventories list a “tinello” or a “tinello della famiglia.”

58.

Spallanzani and Bertela, Libro d’inventario, 197.

59.

Claudio Benporat, Feste e banchetti, convivialita Italiana fra tre a quattrocento (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, Editore, 2001), 168 and 173.

60.

Rossetti, Dello scalco, 109–14.

61.

Sanudo, Venice, 465.

62.

ASMn, A.G., b. 1245.

63.

Ibid., b. 2996, L. 31, c. 58v, 1514, 12 November.

64.

For a discussion of the meal presented in this painting, see Katherine A. McIver, “Banqueting at the Lord’s Table in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” Gastronomica 8, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 8–12.

65.

Hollingsworth, The Cardinal’s Hat, 60–61.

66.

Strictly speaking, the Palazzo del Te was a suburban villa, since it was outside the city of Mantua. Maria Mauer has kindly shared with me a number of documents relating to banquets and meals at the Palazzo.

67.

Alessandro Luzio, “Isabella d’Este e il sacco di Roma,” Archivio Storico Lombardo 4, no. 10 (1908): 365; see as well Catherine Fletcher, “‘Furnished with Gentlemen’: The Ambassador’s House in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Studies 24, no. 4 (September 2010): 529, note 61.

68.

ASMn, A.G., b. 2996, L. 31, c. 58v ss, 1514, 12 November.

69.

ASMn, A.G., b. 1246.

70.

Thomas Wall, The Voyage of Nicholas Carewe to the Emperor Charles V in the Year 1529, ed. R. J. Knecht (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 65. I wish to thank Catherine Fletcher for this reference.

71.

Sanudo, Venice, 290–91, 293, 294–95, 297, 489, and 498.

72.

Ibid., 290.

73.

Gallo, Le dieci giornate, Day VIII, fols. 138r-151v.

74.

Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi), Platina: On Right Pleasure and Good Health: A Critical Edition and Translation of De honesta voluptate et valetudine, ed. and trans. Mary Ella Milham (Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998), 119.

75.

Anne Willan, The Cookbook Library (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2012), 79.

76.

Reino Liefkes, “Tableware,” in At Home in Renaissance Italy, ed. Marta Ajmar Wollheim and Flora Dennis (London: V & A Publications, 2006), 255.

77.

John Kent Lydecker, “The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1987), 104n48.

78.

Benporat, Feste e banchetti, 16–17.

79.

Sanudo, Venice, 170.

80.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, trans. Gaston Du C de Vere (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 2:523–24.

81.

Willan, The Cookbook Library, 81.

82.

Corio, Historia di Milano, ed. Anna Morisi Guera (Turin: UTET, 1985), 2:1391.

83.

Sanudo, Venice, 81.

84.

Romoli in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, 369–74.

85.

Eiche, ed., Ordine, 93–94, 96–98.

86.

Cervio in Faccioli, L’arte della cucina, 520–27.

87.

Quoted in Giuseppe Mantovano, “Il banchetto rinascimentae: Arte, magnificenza, potere,” in A Tavola con il Principe, ed. Jadranka Bentini, Alessandra Chiappini, Giovanni Battista Panatta, and Anna Maria Visser Travagli (Ferrara: Gabriele Corbo, Editori, 1988), 49.

88.

Valerie Taylor, “Banquet Plate and Renaissance Culture: A Day in the Life,” Renaissance Studies 19, no. 5 (November 2005): 621–33.

89.

Cervio, Il trinciante, 58.

90.

Sanudo, Venice, 169–72.

91.

Messisbugo, Banchetti.

92.

Benporat, Feste e banchetti, 75–78, 167–75.

93.

Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 137.

94.

Cervio, Il trinciante, 3–6.

95.

Cohen and Cohen, Daily Life, 224.

96.

Rossetti, Dello scalco, 52–89; Aderito Belli, “Eleonora Sanvitale, Contessa di Scandiano,” Aurea Parma 23 (1939): 146–54.

97.

Belli, “Eleonora Sanvitale,” 148–51.

98.

Rossetti, Dello scalco, 52–89.

99.

Ibid., 205–8.

100.

Benporat, Feste e banchetti, 75–78, 167–171 (Eleonora’s letter), 171–75 (Bernardino Corio); Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes, ed. Frederick Ignatius Antiobus, 2nd ed. (London: Kegan, Paul, French and Co., 1900), 4:243–45; Costantino Corvisieri, Il trionfo romano di Eleonora d’Aragona (Rome: Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 1878), 475–91, 629–87.

101.

Capatti and Montanari, Italian Cuisine, 135.

102.

Platina, On Right Pleasure, 119, is echoing the speech of Pausanias in Plato’s Symposium, trans. and introduction by Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1989).

103.

Giovanni Pontano, “De conviventia,” in I trattati virtù sociali, ed. Francesco Tateo (Rome: Edizioni del Ateneo, 1965), 281–93.

104.

Taylor, “Banquet Plate,” 621.