: provature) or provatura romana[1] is a fresh[1] Italian cheese from the Lazio region of Italy[2] made from buffalo milk by the pasta filata method.
[3] The document, a medieval chronicle, states that the monks of the monastery of S. Lorenzo ad Septimum near Aversa offered the faithful a mozza or provatura with some bread on the feast of the patron saint.
[6] The cheese has often been confused with mozzarella, as in a medical work of the Schola Medica Salernitana, published several times in the 16th century, where it is said that with buffalo milk "one makes those balls tied with rushes that are called mozze here and provature in Rome".
[8] Frugoli's description shows that this cheese can be fresh or matured, and that it has a lower water content and a higher amount of salt and rennet than mozzarella.
[8] As Ada Boni's classic Roman cookery manual La Cucina Romana shows, still in the early 20th century provatura played in the Italian capital's cuisine the role that mozzarella does today.