Csapó Katalin - Füreder Balázs - Sári Zsolt: Reneszánsz ételek – Ételek reneszánsza Időszaki kiállítás 2008. március–május (Budapest, 2008)

Renaissance and Humanism in Europe 50. Illustration, Chantilly 1412-16 The French Renaissance [rinascimento in Italian) means rebirth. The Renaissance is the overall name of fifteenth and sixteenth-century European culture and art. It is the transitional period between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Modern Times. It started in fourteenth-century Italy and became fully fledged in the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century. It refers chiefly to the knowledge and use of ancient classical education, its artistic and scientific rediscovery. At the same time, it refers to the outcome of these intellectual efforts, the rebirth of European cultural life, one of whose important philosophical trends and ideological background was Humanism. Essentially, it maintains that man and his place in the world is the measure of all things. This world view was in contrast with the mediaeval church and religion-based outlook. Its roots go back to Italy which boasted great bourgeois traditions, with its seamen, bankers and merchants amassing significant fortunes and knowledge in the course of the crusades. In that time the upper echelons of society increasingly began to focus on their way of life. Protocols would appear in every area of life, from housing to dressing and eating. The idea was to distinguish the ruling classes from the rest of society, and in particular from the emerging bourgeoisie, the commoners. The principle was that one should eat in accordance with one's "qualities." And that "quality" was, to the ruling classes, intrinsically linked with power. The emerging bourgeoisie and the poorer strata of society inevitably adapted to the new "quality" dictate, learnt and adopted the theory and put it into practice in its own particular way. In bourgeois cuisine (cookery books) Renaissance food and techniques lived on a curious and lasting way right until the early 19th century.