Caviar is, in common perception, an exclusively product of Russian or Iranian origin: history, however, tells much more, because caviar is also an Italian story. “The eggs extracted from the sturgeon which, seasoned, they call caviar” (Ova Stirionis Conditum Quod Caviare Vocant): the phrase, dating back to 1471, is of the humanist Bartolomeo Sacchi called Platina.
One of the first examples of the use of caviar back to 1570, a menu entirely based on caviar and sturgeon made by Bartolomeo Scappi (private chef of Pope Pio V). Other testimonies of other great Italian masters of the past, such as Cristoforo da Messisbugo (1557) and Bartolomeo Stefani (1663), contributed decisively in handing down recipes and the Italian craft secrets of caviar production.
One of the first examples of the use of caviar back to 1570, a menu entirely based on caviar made by Bartolomeo Scappi (private chef of Pope Pio V). Other testimonies of other great Italian masters of the past, such as Cristoforo da Messisbugo (1557) and Bartolomeo Stefani (1663), contributed decisively in handing down recipes and the Italian craft secrets of caviar production.
Even the paintings of the fifteenth century tells about the presence of the sturgeon in Italy: in the “Pescivendoli” painting of Vicnenzo Campi from Cremona, displayed at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, we note one of the three indigenous Italian storages in the foreground. Legend has it that the Renaissance genius of Leonardo Da Vinci, seeing a Ticino sturgeon, had the idea to donate his precious eggs, enclosed in a casket embellished with stones and gems, to Beatrice d’Este during her wedding banquet with Ludovico Sforza, said the Moro.
