In History of Italian Cuisine I and History of Italian Cuisine II we looked at its Roman origins and the early medieval Medieval and Renaissance relationship of Italy with food. In particular, we discovered that the rich and powerful of Italy's most influential cities, from Florence to Rome, from Ferrara to Venice, used food as a means to show their wealth and position, but also to exorcise the natural fear of hunger and death, which was so much intertwined with life in Europe up to the modern era.
We've also seen that, in spite of great efforts placed in proposing astonishing dishes, it was the desire to surprise, rather than a wish to create a gastronomic tradition, to inspire Italian chefs. With the coming of the Renaissance, however, the first signs of a "national" cuisine (I use inverted commas because, as we all know, Italy as a state didn't truly exist until the 19th century, even though it did certainly as a cultural nation) appeared, especially thanks to figures such as that of chef Messisbugo in Ferrara.
