Pellegrino Artusi

[1][2] The son of the wealthy merchant Agostino (nicknamed Buratèl, or "little eel") and Teresa Giunchi, Pellegrino Marcello Artusi came from a large family: he had 12 siblings.

Between the years 1835 and 1850, Artusi spent a great deal of time in student circles in Bologna (in one of his works he claims to have been enrolled at the University).

When he returned to his hometown, he took over his father's business, making quite a bit of money, but the lives of the Artusi family were permanently disrupted by the arrival in Forlimpopoli on January 25, 1851, of the outlaw Stefano Pelloni, nicknamed il Passatore, "the Ferryman".

After stealing as much as possible, the bandits raped several women, one of whom was Gertrude, Artusi's sister, who went crazy from the shock and had to be put in an asylum in Pesaro.

His most famous work is La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well).

His manual, however, entitled La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well), published in Florence in 1891, was much more successful.

The book is a perennial best seller in Italy, and has been translated into Spanish, French, Dutch, German, English and, most recently, Portuguese and Polish.

In 1904, Artusi published a practical manual for the kitchen, with over 3,000 recipes and 150 tables, simply entitled Ecco il tuo libro di cucina (Here is Your Cookbook) with the anonymous participation and influence of the baroness Giulia Turco.