This work focuses on food consumption and eating habits of the merchant Francesco Datini and his extended family. The Datini’s diet, characterized by the abundance, variety and quality of its fare, reflects the culinary culture of the late fourteenth century merchant bourgeoisie. This is a culture in which the desire to imitate aristocratic models of consumption goes hand in hand with greater austerity. Datini’s eating habits, which are well defined thanks to the correspondence, reveal a preoccupation with the consumption of foodstuffs to look after his health, following the dictates of nutritional science, known amongst the higher social classes thanks to the Tacuinum Sanitatis (a mediaeval handbook on health and wellbeing).
What Francesco and His Extended Family Ate
GIAGNACOVO, Maria
2010
Abstract
This work focuses on food consumption and eating habits of the merchant Francesco Datini and his extended family. The Datini’s diet, characterized by the abundance, variety and quality of its fare, reflects the culinary culture of the late fourteenth century merchant bourgeoisie. This is a culture in which the desire to imitate aristocratic models of consumption goes hand in hand with greater austerity. Datini’s eating habits, which are well defined thanks to the correspondence, reveal a preoccupation with the consumption of foodstuffs to look after his health, following the dictates of nutritional science, known amongst the higher social classes thanks to the Tacuinum Sanitatis (a mediaeval handbook on health and wellbeing).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
