From the art of the Medicis to the table of today

by Carla Geri Camporesi and Barbara Golini

This book introduces 50 recipes linked to 50 still life colour reproductions of the Medici collections that are kept in the Uffizi Gallery deposits, in the Palatine Gallery and at the Medici’s Villa of Poggio Imperiale. So we can find “Prunes” by Bartolomeo bimbi, next to ” Chicken breast stuffed with prunes” and “Sweet cake with prunes” together with “Fruit and flowers” by Bartolomeo Ligozzi we can find the description of “Guignoline pears” and “Dates filled with pear sorbet” and “Unripe fig jam”…. An elegant presentation that combines figurative arts to what may be considered a ‘minor’ art, but just as meaningful: that of cooking and the table, set in a historical context, the Renaissance, that has made conviviality, taste and the “feast”, particular elements on which the concept of a refined civilisation are based.