Although many people know the Folger Shakespeare Library for its holdings in early modern English literature, the library also has an extensive collection of early modern Italian books, including some of the earliest cookbooks ever printed.

Italian food has evolved so much over the past 500 years that even so-called ‘classic’ Italian dishes—such as risotto alla milanese, pizza alla napoletana, bistecca alla fiorentina—would have been utterly foreign to early modern Italians in their current configurations. In fact, many of the ingredients we now most associate with Italian cooking, such as tomatoes, had only just been introduced to Europe by Spanish colonizers returning from North America during Shakespeare’s time.