PLATINA

PLATINA. A noted humanist of the Italian Renaissance, Platina, born Bartolomeo Sacchi (1421–1481), is distinguished for culinary historians as the author of the first work on cookery ever printed: De honesta voluptate et valetudine, first in Rome c. 1470, without printer or date, then in Venice in 1475. Translation of the Latin title helps to define a central premise of the revolution in thought that broke with medieval traditions in fifteenth-century Italy. "On honest [meaning 'legitimate'] pleasure and good health" speaks of Platina's allegiance to new understanding and validation of the philosophy of Epicurus brought about from the 1430s by Lorenzo Valla, recognizing that rather than hedonism, it celebrated the creator's love for humans in sensory endowments if these were enhanced through self-control and moderation.

In addition to an Epicurean orientation, Platina underscored his devotion to another Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, by signing the i in his name as the Pythagorean Y, symbolizing the divided path at which one must choose virtue over its alternative; the conceit appears also in the funerary inscription he designed for himself and his brother (Rome, S. Maria Maggiore). From Sacchi's birthplace at Piadena near Cremona came his classicized name Platina, chosen in conformity with practice among fellow members of a premier Roman sodality of humanist scholars under the leadership of Pomponius Laetus, Platina's friend and neighbor on the Quirinal, near the ruins of the Baths of Constantine. Reformist ideas gained from early Church fathers and from pagan antiquity that invested the self-styled "academy" of the Pomponians added to Platina's problems in the curia of Pope Paul II. He was among those imprisoned and tried in 1468 for heresy, but shared in their return to favor under Sixtus IV from 1471. By 1475 Platina had been appointed chief administrator of the Vatican Library.

His treatise on cookery and good health seems to have been written and circulated in manuscript by 1465, following a summer spent with his patron, formerly his pupil in Mantua, the young Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, as guests of the contemporary "Lucullus" of Rome Ludovico Scarampi Mezzarota, Cardinal Trevisan. The final six books of Platina's study are Latin translations of recipes acknowledged as those of his friend, Maestro Martino of Como, head chef to Trevisan. Added to Platina's advisories on principled well-being, essays on natural history, and Galenic medical lore inspired by humanist research in the writings of the ancient Roman agricultural writers, Pliny the elder, and Apicius (whom he calls "Caelius"), these final books or chapters enhanced the reputation of the work.

Platina/Martino remained in print until well into the seventeenth century, seeing Italian editions (often retranslating Martino's vernacular text) in 1487 and 1494, a French translation in Lyons by 1505, and one in German by 1542, plus at least fourteen Latin editions. Abetted by pirated editions of Martino (whose manuscripts were not edited until modern times) such as Epulario (Venice 1516, said to be by one Roselli and very influential in translation for Tudor England) and another by Clement VII's chef, Maestro Giovane, Opera dignissima (et) utile per chi si diletta di cucinare (A both elegant and practical guide to cooking; Milan, c. 1530), De honesta voluptate may be called the thinking man's guide to Renaissance foodways, as opposed to representatives of a courtly tradition.

See also Apicius ; Chef, The ; Cookbooks ; Epicurus ; Italy ; Pythagoras ; Renaissance Banquet .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beck, Leonard N. "Praise Is Due Bartolomeo Platina: A Note on the Librarian-Author of the First Cookbook," Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 32 (1975), 238–253.

Campano, A. and P. Medioli Masotto, eds. Bartolomeo Sacchi il Platina (Piadena 1421–Roma 1481) Cremona, Italy: Atti del Convegno internazionale di Studi per il Centenario, November 1981; Padua, 1986.

Milham, Mary Ella. "Platina. On Right Pleasure and Good Health. " In Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol. 168. Tempe, Ariz., 1998.

Riley, Gillian. "Platina, Martino, and Their Circle," In Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1995: Cooks and Other People. Totnes, Devon, 1996.

Vehling, Joseph D. Platina and the Rebirth of Man. Chicago: W. M. Hill, 1941.

Phyllis Bober