Magazine Dichecibo6.it

Navigation
  • Italiano
  • English
  • Home
  • Dichecibo6? Magazine
  • Events
  • Numero Sei 2021-08-02
  • Numero Cinque 2021-03-22
  • Numero Quattro 2020-06-15
  • Numero Tre 2020-03-16
  • Numero Due 2019-12-09
  • Numero Uno 2019-09-20
  • Numero Zero 2019-05-01
  • Staff
  • Italiano

Recent Posts


  • Gravitating in Space. What food will we be?
  • LOVING WINE, PART TWO
  • Loving wine
  • The value of food what food are you?
  • The Paris of existentialists at the table: celebrating the heart with melancholy

Categories


  • Food and Art
  • Food and History
  • Food and innovation
  • Food and Science
  • Food and Society
  • Food and TRAVEL
  • Food and yong people
  • Food, Biology and Nutrition
  • In Vino Veritas english
  • Interviews
  • Man and Food
info@dichecibo6.it
instagram
facebook

Bimestrale Num.R.G.2728/2019 - num.reg.Stampa 6093 in data 28/02/2019 presso il Tribunale di Firenze
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Cookie Policy

Copyright © Magazine Dichecibo6.it. 2023 • All rights reserved.

Hydra WordPress Theme by EckoThemes.

Published with WordPress.

Related Articles

Filter by Category

  • Food and History(18)
  • Food and Society(14)
  • Interviews(11)
  • Food and Art(9)
  • Food and Science(4)
  • In Vino Veritas english(4)
  • Food and yong people(3)
  • Man and Food(3)
  • Food and innovation(2)
  • Food, Biology and Nutrition(1)
  • Food and TRAVEL(1)

Filter by Author

  • Agnese Raucea (2)
  • Alice Dini (2)
  • Andrea Battiata (2)
  • Anna Cafissi (11)
  • dichecibo6? (4)
  • Carlotta Fonzi Kliemann (2)
  • Chiara Murru (2)
  • Denata Ndreca (2)
  • Fiamma Domestici (14)
  • Francesca Cialdini (2)
  • Franco Banchi (18)
  • Giovanna Frosini (2)
  • Ilaria Persello (16)
  • Luca Galantini (6)
  • Marco Maldera (4)
  • Marta Mariotti (2)
  • Massimo Bartoli (2)
  • Monica Alba (2)
  • Nicoletta Arbusti (29)
  • Paolo Baracchino (4)
  • Rossana Gravina (2)
  • Sasha Perugini (2)
  • Silvia Ciappi (2)
Back to Latest Articles
Man and Food

The value of food what food are you?

Some food is good for our health, and some harmful to us. The production of healthy food decreases and almost eliminates the impact on available resources and eliminates most of...

Posted on 2nd August 2021 by Andrea Battiata

Food and History

Food’s magic

Leonardo da Vinci: a genius in the kitchen We have used to it. After Dan Brown’s and Marco Malvaldi’s Leonardo, we are all somehow “from Vinci”, especially in this...

Posted on 1st May 2019 by Ilaria Persello

Food and Society

The food-pleasure list

We are used to making lists and catalogues, especially now that our phones measure everything, our steps, and the time we spend on the phone or on social media or disposing of...

Posted on 1st May 2019 by Sasha Perugini

Food and Science

Does flour have a soul?

Let’s look at the Flour! Every day we come across a wide variety of food, both from animal and vegetable origin. We handle it, look at it, sometimes cook it, and eat it. Often, we...

Posted on 1st May 2019 by Marta Mariotti

View Latest Posts
Logo
Food and History

Food’s magic


Ilaria Persello
Food’s magic
Posted on 1st May 2019 by Ilaria Persello
  • Italian
  • English

Leonardo da Vinci: a genius in the kitchen

We have used to it. After Dan Brown’s and Marco Malvaldi’s Leonardo, we are all somehow “from Vinci”, especially in this year, the anniversary of his death occurred five hundred years ago. We certainly could not miss Leonardo in the kitchen, already proposed in any possible way1 during the EXPO 2015. Nothing of him gets past us, yet Leonardo is still wrapped in mystery. We know that he was a vegetarian. On the contrary, perhaps he was a vegetarian. Probably even vegan.

Legend has it, through the elusive Romanoff Code (considered by most to be a trick, as the head sculptures by Modigliani), that Leonardo, while at Verrocchio’s workshop, would have worked as a waiter and chef at the trattoria delle Tre Lumache2 near the Ponte Vecchio. There, he would propose – ahead of his time – nouvelle cuisine dishes, enchanting guests mainly with pastry making, vegetables and the plating up. They even say that Leonardo had managed a trattoria together with Sandro Botticelli, the trattoria delle Tre Rane3. Leonardo would have invented the Milanese risotto during the painting of the Last Supper. He may have left a list of convivial rules, a kind of etiquette to follow at banquets and even a series of recipes that made envious the most famous chefs of the Renaissance.

In fact, it is known that Leonardo da Vinci not only dealt with art and technical-scientific research, but also spent much of his time organizing and staging large court banquets and parties, both in Milan and in France. Perhaps he also contributed to the design of the related menus. Leonardo’s traces of culinary art are light, almost like Mona Lisa’s smile. We find something in the Atlantic Codex (preserved at the Ambrosian Library in Milan) in which, among notes and drawings of mechanics, anatomy and geometry, there are even some projects to ease a cook’s work: mechanical rotisseries, special ovens… Among some of the most curious kitchen appliances inventions, people have identified a pepper mill inspired by the design of the La Spezia lighthouse, a wind egg slicer, a mechanical rotisserie (namely a spit with rotating propellers that rotate with the heat of the flame). Also, devices and tools to peel and chop ingredients, and objects considered as a predecessor of the corkscrew.

Thanks to the writings left, however, we can assume that Leonardo knew and experimented with herbs and spices among which, turmeric, aloe, saffron, poppy flowers, cornflowers, brooms, mustard oil and linseed oil.

Leonardo also studied how to improve wine production. Expert in botanical studies, he owned a farm in Florence and a vineyard in Milan, given to him by Ludovico il Moro in 1499, immediately after painting the Last Supper. In a famous letter, he explains to his peasant how to improve winemaking production. Leonardo studied raw materials, invented machines and tools for their processing, reasoned about the characteristics of the areas of production, codified regulations for products such as oil, bread and wine. He explored the properties of foods in relation to the health of the body. He wrote fairy tales, “prophecies”, riddles and puzzles inspired by the theme of food, and he realized extraordinary drawings of innovative machines for production. Not to forget the foods in his paintings, starting from the Last Supper.

Some of his memorable (and very modern) annotations remain scattered here and there among almost indecipherable notes.

“King of the animals–– as thou hast described him–– I should rather say king of the beasts, thou being the greatest–because thou doest only help them, in order that they give thee their children for the benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make a sepulchre for all animals; and I would say still more, if I were allowed to speak the entire truth.” (…) “Tell me, now does not nature produce enough simple for thee to satisfy thyself? And if thou art not content with such, canst thou not by mixture of them make infinite compounds, as Platina wrote, and other authors on feeding?”4

(Quaderni d’Anatomia II 14 r, housed at the Royal Library of Windsor)

A very particular recipe came to us from the Atlantic Codex. “Sugar, rosewater, lemon and fresh water poured through white cloth: and this is the Turks’ summer drink”

(Atlantic Codex, fol.482r.)This is the only evidence of specific gastronomic interest from Leonardo da Vinci: a “Turkish” and very simple interpretation of rose water, in the form of a drink, probably written around 1517, when he was in France. Ideally, we want to toast him with this aquarosa because we are convinced that if Leonardo had also dealt with recipes, he would certainly have produced something brilliant.

ILARIA PERSELLO


[1] The expression in any possible way should be translated literally from Italian in all sauces – in tutte le salse – to maintain the original wordplay, impossible in English.
[2] Transl. Trattoria of the Three Snails
[3] Transl. Trattoria of the Three Frogs
[4] Translation taken from Jean Paul Richter The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci – 3rd Edition 1970 (first published in 1883)
Ilaria Persello
  • Share Article:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit

Related Articles

Food and History

1st December 1928 / A cruise breakfast on the Saturnia

Time machine does not always proceed backwards towards extraordinary and memorable days. Actually, 1 December 1928 appears as an ordinary working day. Yet, behind the crumpled and...

Posted on 20th September 2019 by Franco Banchi
Food and History

MARSILIO FICINO: food and therapeutic optimism

CLIMBING THE SKY IN HEALTH The great humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino, whose Academy ennobled Florentine culture in the Laurentian era, had a special relationship with food....

Posted on 13th June 2020 by Franco Banchi
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptReject Read More
Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
  • Italiano
  • English