I travestimenti della carne nei banchetti del rinascimento italiano

The essay explores the art of presentation of dishes at Italian Renaissance banquets, highlighting the central role of meat as a symbol of social distinction and its ‘scenographic disguise’. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, the influence of humanistic culture transformed banquets into complex narrative events, with dishes presented in elaborate scenic fictions predominantly of mythological subjects. The scenographic presentation of dishes, such as cooked peacocks dressed in their feathers to appear alive, was designed to amaze guests and glorify the magnificence of the patrons. Wedding banquets, in particular, became tools of political and cultural propaganda, whose memory was spread by official printed descriptions that amplified their impact (an entirely Italian innovation for the 15th century). A notable example is the wedding of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla of Aragon, celebrated in Pesaro in 1475, documented in a precious illuminated manuscript (the Vat. Urb. Lat. 899) whose illustrations are examined in relation to the encomiastic meanings of the banquet’s organization. Scenic banquets were, therefore, one of the ways in which the figures of antiquity and their myths, known through humanistic studies, were brought to life and became a tangible part of the imagination of the Italian elites, who used them for self-representation