SAVONAROLA, Giovanni Michele.

Fourth edition, second issue, newly edited and enlarged by Bartolomeo Boldo, of this popular gastronomical work and manual of good digestive health, first published 1508. The guide considers both natural and ‘unnatural’ aids to health, the latter referring to lifestyle choices rather than food or drink. The work is clearly divided into sections: grains, herbs, roots, citrus and other fruits, animals (meat), fish, eggs, milk, wine, oil, salt, spices and odorous flowers. The items in each section are then treated individually, usually with advice on taste, humoral effects and remedial qualities. Savonarola’s treatise is sometimes noted for his advice on consuming artichokes as aphrodisiacs, equally useful for both men and women (p. 66). There are then sections on good air, exercise, maintaining ‘quiet,’ good sleep, purgation and evacuation, the effects of the ‘animal passions’ and ‘perturbation,’ and, finally, eighteen observations for conserving health (all of which are linked to diet or digestion) along with nine doubtful (dubio) questions concerning habits for prolonging one’s life. These include how many times you should eat per day, whether you should drink wine before you eat (and whether you should drink wine after eating fruit), and whether it is better to eat a good lunch or a good dinner; the answer is a good lunch. Savonarola was physician to the Estense court of Ferrara in the fifteenth century.