Description
The act of eating is a basic human need. Yet in all societies, quotidian choices regarding food and its consumption reveal deeply rooted shared cultural conventions. Food goes beyond issues relating to biological needs and nutrition or production and commerce; it also reveals social and cultural criteria that determine what dishes are prepared on what occasions, and it unveils the politics of the table via the rituals associated with different meals. This book approaches the history of food in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy through an interdisciplinary prism of sources ranging from correspondence, literature (both high and low), and medical and dietary treatises to cosmographic theory and iconographic evidence. Using a variety of analytical methods and theoretical approaches, it moves food studies firmly into the arena of Late Medieval and Renaissance history, providing an essential key to deciphering the material and metaphorical complexity of this period in European, and especially Italian, history.
About the Author
Allen J. Grieco is Senior Research Associate Emeritus at the Villa I Tatti. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber is Director of Studies (Retired) and Associated Member at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Reviews
A comprehensive and insightful contribution on the subject of food culture in the Renaissance. -- Marco Malvestio * Renaissance and Reformation *
Grieco's book, much awaited, maintains his promise of being a milestone in food history, regardless of the time period it covers...A deep inquiry into the mutual relationships between moral and political economies, as well as of knowledge production, and dissemination. For materially and visually-minded historians of science and knowledge this book is a treasure of suggestions, both about the systems of classifications of nature and about the daily life of people elaborating and disseminating knowledge about the edible side of the natural world. -- Paolo Savoia * Nuncius *
Over the course of a long and distinguished career, Grieco has been a pioneering figure in Renaissance food history...This opulently illustrated collection brings together a number of Grieco's most important pieces published over the past several decades...A fitting coda to the admirable career of a pioneer in food history. -- Eric Dursteler * Journal of Early Modern History *
Book Information
ISBN 9780674244085
Author Allen J. Grieco
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
About the Author
Allen J. Grieco is Senior Research Associate Emeritus at the Villa I Tatti. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber is Director of Studies (Retired) and Associated Member at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Reviews
A comprehensive and insightful contribution on the subject of food culture in the Renaissance. -- Marco Malvestio * Renaissance and Reformation *
Grieco's book, much awaited, maintains his promise of being a milestone in food history, regardless of the time period it covers...A deep inquiry into the mutual relationships between moral and political economies, as well as of knowledge production, and dissemination. For materially and visually-minded historians of science and knowledge this book is a treasure of suggestions, both about the systems of classifications of nature and about the daily life of people elaborating and disseminating knowledge about the edible side of the natural world. -- Paolo Savoia * Nuncius *
Over the course of a long and distinguished career, Grieco has been a pioneering figure in Renaissance food history...This opulently illustrated collection brings together a number of Grieco's most important pieces published over the past several decades...A fitting coda to the admirable career of a pioneer in food history. -- Eric Dursteler * Journal of Early Modern History *
Book Information
ISBN 9780674244085
Author Allen J. Grieco
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
