Bartolomeo Scappi (c. 1500 – 13 April 1577) was a famous Italian Renaissance chef and food writer, best known for his high profile clients, including being the personal chef of Pope Pius IV.

Biography

Scappi came from Dumenza in Lombardy, Italy, according to the inscription on a stone plaque in the church of Luino. In April 1536, he organised a banquet while in the service of Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio. He served several other cardinals after this, then began to serve pope Pius IV, entering the service of the Vatican kitchen. He continued to work as a chef for pope Pius V. Scappi is often considered one of the first internationally renowned celebrity chefs. He gained new fame in 1570 when his monumental cookbook, Opera dell'arte del cucinare, was published. In the book, he lists about 1,000 recipes of Renaissance cuisine and describes cooking techniques and tools, giving the first known picture of a fork. He declared Parmesan to be the best cheese on earth, and noted that "the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds", indicating that Jews of the time were practising the force-feeding used to produce foie gras. Reprints of Opera were continually published from 1570 to 1643. Scappi died on 13 April 1577, and was buried in the church of Chiesa dei Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio alla Regola in Rome, dedicated to cooks and bakers. The Opera dell'arte del cucinare was partially translated into Spanish (Libro de cozina, 1599, by Diego Granado) and Dutch (Koocboec oft familieren keukenboec, 1612, by Antonius Magirus). There is an English translation by the food historian Terence Scully (2008) and modern Dutch translation by Ike Cialona (2015).