The everyday eighteenth-century

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During the eighteenth century, European cities established a new lifestyle that will be the basis of modern living and, at the same time, the products that arrive from the colonies overseas generate changes in customs and habits.

In the Veneto of the second half of the 18th century our scholar is immersed in the reality so well described by Goldoni in his contemporary comedies – true small contemporary dramas. Venice at that time is ending its history as an independent state, but it is still a centre in contact with the most modern aspects of the time. In Padova, the University transforms the tower of the old castle into a Specola for the study of astronomy in 1767.

Pietro Longhi Coffee drinkers in a painting by Pietro Longhi of the XVIII century (from Fondazione Federico Zeri – Università di Bologna)
The Marsili library preserves texts on coffee, tea, and chocolate to drink in a cup; drinks that had met the favour of Europeans and led to the invention of a new way of being together in a new meeting place: the coffee shop. At the coffee shop the new drinks were consumed, but there was also the opportunity to read gazettes and newspapers, to discuss and chat. An inventory of assets informs us that at the death of Marsili in his home in the botanical garden there were porcelain services for coffee and chocolate.

In the texts of botanists and travellers one reads about exotic plants and the uses made of them in their native lands, ponder their medicinal properties and influence on human health, with images that illustrate not only the plants themselves, but also the places of cultivation and production – even the tools for their consumption, such as cups and teapots. The new drinks are brought closer to the western taste with the use of sugar, cane and then beetroot, and with the aroma of vanilla.

PAGE INDEX

André Thevet, Les singularitez de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amerique… (1558)

A very important volume in the travel literature of the sixteenth century, dedicated to illustrating the different aspects of the life of the natives of the Brazilian coasts. An image shows a hunting scene of fur animals. The society of the eighteenth century – a lover of luxury, of fashion – in which Marsili lived was particularly refined: the demand for furs will impoverish the fauna of American forests.

Thevet-1 Thevet-2 Two pages from Les singularitez de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amerique (from Phaidra)

Prospero Alpino, De plantis Aegypti liber (1592)

Prospero Alpino Representation of a branch of "Bon" in the De plantis Aegypti liber (from Phaidra)
Work of Prospero Alpino (or Alpini), of Marostica, a physician and botanist who will hold the position of Prefect of the Botanical Garden of Padova between 1603 and 1613. Alpini lived for about three years in Cairo, between 1581 and 1584, and was a personal physician of the Venetian consul in Egypt – on that occasion he studied local plants and medicine. In this volume he describes, for the first time in Italy, the plant called "Bon" and the custom of imbibing a dark energy-giving drink, obtained by boiling its berries: coffee.



Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, Chocolata inda. Opusculum de qualitate & natura chocolatae (1644)

A small-sized booklet by the Andalusian doctor Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma. It is a work dedicated to chocolate, first published in 1631 and then translated into various languages. The chocolate, described here for one of the first times as a hot drink with a specific recipe, is illustrated in particular for its medicinal uses.

Francisco Hernandez, Rerum medicarum Nouae Hispaniae thesaurus... (1651)

Francisco Hernandez has been exploring the lands of Spanish America for years, bringing back to Spain a great deal of information on the traditions and customs of the natives and on South American medicine, which will then be published in this volume. Here the name given to the plants by the Indians is also shown, as we see in one of the first images of vanilla berries (also called TLILXOCHITL), a forest orchid, from which the perfumed essence is produced which will immediately become highly sought after in Europe. The text derives from a reworking of Hernandez's manuscripts, edited by Antonio Recchi and, after his death, by Federico Cesi, Fabio Colonna, Johannes Faber and Ioannes Terrentius.



Nicolas de Blegny, Le Bon usage du the' du caffe' et du chocolat pour la preservation & pour la guerison des maladies... (1687)

A small-format book in which the French doctor Nicolas de Blegny discusses the health aspect of fashionable drinks – coffee, tea and hot chocolate to drink in a cup. The volume also contains images of new types of crockery such as cups, teapots, coffee pots, and chocolatiers with their whisk.

de-Blegny-1 de-Blegny-2 Due pagine illustrate del libro (da Phaidra)

D. de Quelus, Histoire naturelle du cacao, et du sucre… (1720)

The author, also known as Caylus, focuses once again on cocoa, but also on an ingredient that has become more available thanks to the large American cane plantations: sugar.