The Pope's Chef
Mary Hollingsworth

Bartolomeo Scappi (c. 1500–77) was an ordinary man blessed with an extraordinary talent, one that has made him a towering figure in food history. Chef to cardinals and popes, he used his experience of cooking in Lombardy, Venice and Rome to write a uniquely comprehensive guide to the food of Renaissance Italy. This book, a majestic compendium containing some 1,400 recipes and one hundred menus, provides an unparalleled insight into the lives of the men and women of the period, and the culinary revolution that took place there.

Renaissance Italy has long been famous as a landmark in the history of art and culture but it deserves to be celebrated far beyond these confines. It also gave birth to some amazing innovations on the dining table, many of which are still relevant today: the use of individual place settings, for example, each diner with his own napkin, plate, glass knife, spoon and fork; the fork itself was a novelty, as were sets of matching dinner plates. The greatest changes took place in the food itself. Fresh fruit and vegetables had been entirely alien at the medieval banquet – a vegetarian diet was the food of choice for the ascetic monk, and of necessity for the poor who could not afford anything else – but these items now appeared on the menus of the wealthy elite. Most striking of all was the invention of the salad.

This book also examines Scappi’s own experiences to trace the culinary revolution that took place in Renaissance Italy. Using his menus and recipes, it shows how food was grown, bought, cooked and eaten at all levels of society, offering an entirely new perspective on this fascinating period of history. It reveals much about the cultural diversity of the peninsula, the gulf between urban and rural cultures, and the impact of the far-reaching political, economic and social changes that transformed society, not least the Reformation and its aftermath. Above all, it illustrates the formative role played by food as a signifier of social class and of Scappi’s own journey from very modest beginnings to the highest echelons of his profession.