ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Renaissance banquet is a form of art that combines the taste of show to music and table.

It is a representation of power that is expressed through the display of the symbols of the table through which the greatness of the prince is exalted.

Origin
This form of art, where magnificence is the key word, takes shape probably in Naples and then spreads to the courts of northern Italy with the marriage of Ercole I d'Este and Eleonora d'Aragona. He then reached the highest level of refinement in the period between the reign of Hercules II and that of the last Duke of Ferrara Alfonso II: at this time Ferrara was called "the first truly modern city in Europe".

Description
In addition to the spectacular installations and artistic culinary compositions, the Renaissance banquet is characterized by the Art of Fine Serve orchestrated by the "Office of mouth" composed of the scalco, the mulching and the couples, each held to a very ritualized gesture. The subject of real technical treatises was the figure of the mulcher who cleverly cut meat and tasted food. The couple, in charge of the wine service, also had the competence to make belief, that is to ensure that the drink was not poisoned. From this expression also derives the name belief given to the exposure of the ready to be used in the banquet. Among all these trades associated with the table was also important the figure of the dapifero (a speaker of nursery).

The banquet is often preceded by a carousel, a pole, a ring race, a goose or pig game, masked and moorish (when the feast is concurrent of the carnival) or a courteous with wagons and triumphal arches through the city.

The halls of the palace are embellished so as to offer the guests an enchanted world: just before their arrival, the tapestries, carpets, corami (worked heart), together with the ephemeral arrangements that make up the furniture decoration of the banquet, kept in the wardrobe of the prince. This sumptuous scenic setting represents a rural and luxurious subjects, perspectives of gardens and landscapes to which are added edges characterized by naturalistic motifs (vegetals, flowers or putti).

The beginning of the real banquet was announced to the sound of trumpets and drums that repeated at every new reach. It was customary to invite to the banquet an audience of spectators consisting of bourgeois, artisans and religious. Lunch was usually accompanied by music and theatrical performances. The number of courses could be impressive, with hundreds of dishes.

Equipment
The first text that long describes the layout of the table is in the manual Il libro de cozina, written by Robert de Nola, at the beginning of the 16th century. Besides the iconographic sources, also the chryphorus hulls from Messisbugo, Jaccomo Grana, Vinc