loved, by Florentines, the city had become a refuge for the Romagnoli who had managed to escape the oppressive clerical rule under which they were born. Artusi had moved to Florence in 1852, together with his mother and father, “to deal in fabrics and silk and make himself a Florentine … who knew how to appreciate the services of the banks and the advantages of the first railroads.” 79 A well-to-do member of society from birth, he confesses in his surprisingly dull
Autobiografia
to having nourished feelings of gratitude for his parents, “not for giving birth to me, which I consider a misfortune, but for leaving me the legacy of a good name and the means to lead a comfortable life.” 80
The son of Agostino, a prominent merchant whom friends called “Buratel,” 81 and of Teresa Giunchi, Pellegrino Artusi was born on 4 August 1820. In 1831, his father had participated in the insurrectionary movements of Forlimpopoli, which at the time was one of the Legazioni Pontificie, a territory governed by the church. In March of that year Buratel was among the signatories of a proclamation extolling “Liberty, Union, and Fatherland.” In later years, his patriotism would abate considerably. To get a taste of the lukewarm national sentiments that afflicted old Buratel and the parallel insurgence, in him, of a “sound” one-never-knows philosophy, let us pay heed to anepisode narrated by Pellegrino himself: “A public subscription was opened in order to aid the State Treasury in paying for war expenses. At that time my father had given me the key to the [family] coffer and I could rummage around in it just as he did. I opened the box with him there and said: ‘I have not been able to offer Italy my arm, when She asked for it … Let me now give a sign, at least, of my love for her liberty and independence’ … I took 300 liras and rushed them over, asking the clerk to register them in my father’s name. Caught unnaware by my sudden action, he could not keep himself from exclaiming: ‘What are you doing? What are you doing? Who knows if things will last like this?’ ‘They will,’ I said, ‘this time they will,’ and I fled.” 82
Couched in language that could not be more pietistic and is, nowadays, slightly repulsive, the passage also sheds light on the shifting of power from father to son within a fairly representative upper-middle-class family. Most of all, it alerts us to the kind of rhetoric to which an accomplished bourgeois would unashamedly resort, in order to disguise as an act of patriotism what in reality is nothing but a crude (and very profitable) financial investment.
A male child among seven sisters, Pellegrino grew up in comfort, thanks to his father’s successful business as a textile merchant and drug store owner. Of his early education, Pellegrino writes: “When I was big enough, it was decided that l’d be sent to school… And what an awful school it was! … What awful teachers, especially for the lower classes! Real slave drivers. On top of everything else, the one l’m talking about was an acrimonious man whom they called
Strapianton
[the Well-Rooted). A rabid papist, he used to make us read the Office of the Virgin every Saturday in Latin even though he himself didn’t understand a word of it. Every so often when a student didn’t know his lessons, he would say, ‘put your hands out’… and whack with the rod.” 83 Later Artusi studied at the episcopal seminary schools of Bertinoro and for a time sojourned in Bologna, without, however, attending the Pontifical University, as many of his more creative biographers contend. 84
As a young man, he helped with his father’s business and traveledas far as Trieste, Milan, Ancona, Rome, Naples, and many other places where he acquainted himself with much of the gastronomic lore he would later whip into the cauldron of
Scienza in cucina
. The immediate cause of the family’s move from Romagna to Florence was the brutal assault to which
Autobiografia
to having nourished feelings of gratitude for his parents, “not for giving birth to me, which I consider a misfortune, but for leaving me the legacy of a good name and the means to lead a comfortable life.” 80
The son of Agostino, a prominent merchant whom friends called “Buratel,” 81 and of Teresa Giunchi, Pellegrino Artusi was born on 4 August 1820. In 1831, his father had participated in the insurrectionary movements of Forlimpopoli, which at the time was one of the Legazioni Pontificie, a territory governed by the church. In March of that year Buratel was among the signatories of a proclamation extolling “Liberty, Union, and Fatherland.” In later years, his patriotism would abate considerably. To get a taste of the lukewarm national sentiments that afflicted old Buratel and the parallel insurgence, in him, of a “sound” one-never-knows philosophy, let us pay heed to anepisode narrated by Pellegrino himself: “A public subscription was opened in order to aid the State Treasury in paying for war expenses. At that time my father had given me the key to the [family] coffer and I could rummage around in it just as he did. I opened the box with him there and said: ‘I have not been able to offer Italy my arm, when She asked for it … Let me now give a sign, at least, of my love for her liberty and independence’ … I took 300 liras and rushed them over, asking the clerk to register them in my father’s name. Caught unnaware by my sudden action, he could not keep himself from exclaiming: ‘What are you doing? What are you doing? Who knows if things will last like this?’ ‘They will,’ I said, ‘this time they will,’ and I fled.” 82
Couched in language that could not be more pietistic and is, nowadays, slightly repulsive, the passage also sheds light on the shifting of power from father to son within a fairly representative upper-middle-class family. Most of all, it alerts us to the kind of rhetoric to which an accomplished bourgeois would unashamedly resort, in order to disguise as an act of patriotism what in reality is nothing but a crude (and very profitable) financial investment.
A male child among seven sisters, Pellegrino grew up in comfort, thanks to his father’s successful business as a textile merchant and drug store owner. Of his early education, Pellegrino writes: “When I was big enough, it was decided that l’d be sent to school… And what an awful school it was! … What awful teachers, especially for the lower classes! Real slave drivers. On top of everything else, the one l’m talking about was an acrimonious man whom they called
Strapianton
[the Well-Rooted). A rabid papist, he used to make us read the Office of the Virgin every Saturday in Latin even though he himself didn’t understand a word of it. Every so often when a student didn’t know his lessons, he would say, ‘put your hands out’… and whack with the rod.” 83 Later Artusi studied at the episcopal seminary schools of Bertinoro and for a time sojourned in Bologna, without, however, attending the Pontifical University, as many of his more creative biographers contend. 84
As a young man, he helped with his father’s business and traveledas far as Trieste, Milan, Ancona, Rome, Naples, and many other places where he acquainted himself with much of the gastronomic lore he would later whip into the cauldron of
Scienza in cucina
. The immediate cause of the family’s move from Romagna to Florence was the brutal assault to which
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