Cibo ed epidemie. A tavola con gli appestati (secc. XVI-XVII)

During the recurring pestilential epidemics that occurred in Italy from the fifteenth century up to a good part of the modern age, the medicine of the time fielded all the therapeutic tools available to try to prevent and treat the harmful consequences of the contagion: surgical interventions, pharmaceutical remedies belonging largely to the Galenic tradition, the prescription of certain social behaviors and the recommendation to observe specific diets ('dietetics') deemed suitable to counteract the onset of the disease; this contribution focuses, in particular, on food and edibles indicated by contemporary treatises, to be used specifically in preservative and medicinal diets, for the protection of health in pandemic periods.