# Who was Pellegrino Artusi, and why does his cookbook still matter? Canonical: https://zestasy.com/books/who-was-pellegrino-artusi/ Section: Books & ideas · Updated: 2026-10-13 · Publisher: Zestasy Pellegrino Artusi (1820-1911) was a businessman from Forlimpopoli in Romagna who lived most of his life in Florence and, in 1891, self-published La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene. It was among the first cookbooks to bring recipes from across Italy's regions into one volume, written for people cooking at home, and it is often credited with helping to define a national Italian cuisine. Artusi was not a chef. He was born on 4 August 1820 in Forlimpopoli, near Forlì, made his living in business, and spent most of his long life in Florence, where he died on 30 March 1911 at the age of 90. Cooking was his passion rather than his trade, which turns out to be the secret of the book. ## The book nobody wanted to publish Artusi could not find a publisher for La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (roughly, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well), so he paid for the first edition himself. It appeared in Florence in 1891 and sold slowly at first: about a thousand copies in four years. Then word of mouth did its work. By the time Artusi died, more than 200,000 copies had been sold, and the book has never really left Italian kitchens since. The Treccani encyclopaedia counts 790 recipes plus appendices and indexes. ## Why it mattered then Artusi did three things that set the book apart: - **He gathered regions together.** He is regarded as the first to put recipes from all of Italy's regions into one cookbook, at a time when the country had only recently been unified politically and was still very much a patchwork at the table. - **He wrote for homes.** The Treccani entry describes how his approach brought refined cooking, once a privilege of courts and the wealthy, into the reach of middle-class and ordinary households. - **He wrote like a person.** His prose is light and conversational, full of anecdotes and asides, so the book reads like a knowledgeable friend talking you through dinner rather than a manual barking orders. That combination is why he is so often credited with helping to establish a national Italian cuisine, and why a 2011 film marking the centenary of his death was subtitled, in effect, the unification of Italy in the kitchen. ## Why it still matters now Three reasons we keep coming back to him: - **It is the ancestor of the Italian home kitchen.** It was written for middle-class families cooking at home rather than for professional chefs, and that is still the kitchen most of us cook in. - **It is a model of tone.** Confident, funny, opinionated, never precious. Much of the best food writing since has the same voice. - **It is still a living book.** Casa Artusi in Forlimpopoli, opened in 2007, runs a cookery school and celebrates his idea of home cooking, and the town has held a Festa Artusiana every June since 1997. ## How to read it today Don't expect the precision of a modern recipe book; it was written more than 130 years ago, for people who already cooked every day. Read it as history you can taste: dip in, enjoy the stories, and cook the simpler things using your own judgement. An English translation, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, was first published in 1997, so you do not need Italian, though a little helps with the jokes. ## FAQ ### Was Artusi a professional cook? No. He was a businessman and writer, and the book came out of a lifelong interest in food. That outsider's position is part of why it speaks so directly to home cooks. ### Is the book only about Tuscan or Romagnolo food? No. His roots were in Romagna and his home was Florence, but what made the book important was that it drew on cooking from across the regions. ### Where can you learn more about him in Italy? Casa Artusi in Forlimpopoli, his birthplace, is a cultural centre with a cookery school and restaurant devoted to his legacy, and the town's Festa Artusiana runs every June. ### Did he write anything else? Yes. A 1904 kitchen manual, Ecco il tuo libro di cucina, is also attributed to him, though La scienza in cucina is the book that made his name. ## Sources - [Treccani: Pellegrino Artusi (Dizionario Biografico)](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/pellegrino-artusi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/) - [Wikipedia: Pellegrino Artusi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellegrino_Artusi) - [Casa Artusi](https://www.casartusi.it/en/) - [49th Shelf: Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (University of Toronto Press)](https://49thshelf.com/content/view/full/228716) - [Pellegrino Artusi: official site](https://www.pellegrinoartusi.it/) ## Related - [What are the best books about the history of Italian food?](https://zestasy.com/books/books-about-italian-food-history/) - [Who was Marcella Hazan, and which of her books should you start with?](https://zestasy.com/books/who-was-marcella-hazan/) - [What is cucina povera?](https://zestasy.com/food/what-is-cucina-povera/) - [What is a soffritto, and why does it matter?](https://zestasy.com/food/what-is-a-soffritto/) - [What are the best food books that aren't cookbooks?](https://zestasy.com/books/food-books-that-arent-cookbooks/) - [All Books & ideas answers](https://zestasy.com/books/)