(1421–81) Platina was appointed Librarian at the Vatican in 1475, and in the same year published and dated the first printed cookery book, De Honesta Voluptate (a title which cannot be translated into either English or French without resort to a whole paragraph of explanation).
Platina was born Bartolomeo Sacchi, of an obscure family, and took the name Platina from his birthplace, Piadena, in the plains of Lombardy. He is known to have served for several years as a soldier and to have been tutor to the children of Ludovico Gonzaga, who gave him a letter of recommendation to the famous Cosimo de' Medici in Florence, when he went there to study Greek. It was probably in 1462 that he arrived in Rome, where he aroused papal wrath for supposed impieties and served two terms in prison before bouncing back into favour, and obtaining his librarianship, after writing some papal biographies.
That part of De honesta voluptate (books 6–10) which incorporates recipes came directly from the important Libro de Arte Coquinaria of Maestro Martino of Como. Of Martino's 250 recipes about 240 reappear in Platina, mostly in the same order but with some additional articles on fish, cereals, and vegetables. Platina's debt to Martino was acknowledged in the recipe for biancomangiare (a most important medieval dish, represented by blancmange in the modern world) in the following terms: ‘What cook, oh ye immortal gods, could compare with my Martino, from whom I have learned most of what I write.’
Martino wrote his recipes in the vernacular, whereas Platina used Latin. He was one of the ‘Roman humanists’, who, as Gillian Riley, in her study of ‘Platina, Martino and their Circle’ (1996), puts it:
took a delight in conversing in the language of Horace and Virgil, of Cicero and Martial for its own sake; Latin tripped pleasurably and effortlessly off their tongues and pens, celebrating pagan themes and pagan activities. Dressed in togas, crowned with laurel wreaths, they re-enacted ancient ceremonies, of which feasting was one.
In line with this general approach to life, and with his own Epicurean beliefs (to be contrasted with those of the Stoics and the Peripatetics), Platina recommended moderation in the enjoyment of good things, and due regard for context. It was Epicurus who said: ‘Before thinking what you have to eat and drink, seek around you with whom to eat and drink.’
Platina's book ran to a second printing in the same year as its first and subsequently appeared in at least 14 other Latin editions. The first French edition was published at Lyons in 1505. Meanwhile, the first two Italian editions had come out in 1487 and 1494 (from the hands of translators who did not realize that the recipes had originally been in Italian, in the Martino manuscript, and who consequently made some comical errors). The first English translation did not appear until 1967, when the Mallinckrodt Chemical Corporation in Saint Louis, Missouri, surprised its customers by giving them as a Christmas gift an English translation which was by, although not attributed to, Elizabeth Andrews. It was on paper stained by one of their chemicals to simulate antique parchment. Since then the authoritative translation by Mary Ellen Milham (1998) has appeared, with a full biographical essay on Platina.
Platina's work was of exceptional importance, and not only in transmitting to a very wide audience the admirable recipes of Martino. In the words of Leonard Beck (1984): ‘The reader of De honesta voluptate is looking into the cocoon in which the modern cookbook is struggling to be born.’ One could add a claim on Platina's behalf that he was the very first scholarly writer on food and cookery.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Beck, Leonard N. (1984), Two Loaf-Givers, Washington: Library of Congress.
