At The Table With Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was born in Anchiano, near Vinci in Tuscany, on April 15, 1452. Son of the notary Piero, and a peasant, Caterina, he spent his childhood living with his mother, enjoying simple, natural food such as olive oil, bread, and wine, as well as home-grown vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, and occasionally chicken from their own hens.

At the age of 14, Leonardo joined the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–88), one of the most important artists and engineers in Florence. According to his first biographer, Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), “[the master] was astounded by the teenager's talent.” This was evident in Verrocchio's painting "The Baptism of Christ," in which the angel painted by Leonardo is the most distinctive part of the picture.

The workshop masters received an allowance for each pupil to cover their education, accommodation, and board. This would consist of meat, vegetables, fried pastries, different kinds of pasta and soups like the tortellini in broth.

Although Leonardo himself did not cook, he was very interested in nutrition:

"Do not eat when not hungry, and always dine light in the evening, chew well, and only use simple, well-cooked ingredients. Wine should be moderated, small portions but often, not outside of a meal or on an empty stomach. Do not delay or prolong your visits to the lavatory." (Codex Atlanticus 213v).

Leonardo also describes the perfect kitchen: “(…)Set up your kitchen outside so you can wash your pots and pans there, to avoid having to carry them through the house… The pantry, the woodshed, the oven, the chicken coop, and the servants' quarters must all be nearby, for ease. (…). The food coming out of the kitchen can be served through wide, low hatches" (Codex Atlanticus 1090r/393).

Ahead of his time, he believed that eating in moderation had health benefits: “Always moderate what you ingest, or the food you eat, which could be harmful if abused,” he stated in the French Codex Manuscript H 15r. Today it's surprising to see that his recipes included super foods, such as red lentil soup or fried beans, and even modernistic parsnips in the form of root vegetable chips.

There is evidence that Leonardo was vegetarian for much of his life, perhaps due to his love of nature. On a trip to India, one of the artist's contemporaries, Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1551), even wrote about its citizens: “They do not eat anything that has blood, nor do they allow others to, nor do they allow anyone to hurt another living creature, just like our Leonardo da Vinci. They live on rices, milk, and other foods. Nothing dead.”

Leonardo himself reflected: “If you are, as you have stated, the king of the animals (…) why not help other animals, rather than take their offspring to feed your gluttony?”

Leonardo classified the vegetarian diet as “simple” and recommended that it be followed: “Does nature not produce enough simple food to satisfy you?"

Leonardo's famous codices consist of thousands of pages in mirrored handwriting (from right to left). Among hundreds of designs and inventions, there are also grocery shopping lists: bread, wine, mushrooms, peas, salad, chickpeas, root vegetables, herbs, fresh cheese, pomegranates, peaches, bran, eggs, and fish…

The menu consisted of three services with hundreds of dishes, including elderberry fritters made using ground almonds sieved with rose water or pea soup, peacock, fried oysters, meat pies, and mythological animals sculpted from sugar paste.

Painting "The Last Supper", in Santa María delle Grazie, the prior's nephew wrote of how Leonardo worked on his masterpiece: “Sometimes he would wield the paintbrush from dawn until dusk, painting incessantly and forgetting to eat or drink”. The painting included images of bread, oranges, fish, lemon, something that looked like cheese, and red wine.

Leonardo had a vineyard in Milan where he produced sweet white wine of the variety Malvasía di Candía Aromática.

He was a real connoisseur, which was reflected in a letter he wrote in 1515: “The last four carafes were not as I had hoped, regretfully. If the vines at Fiesole were better managed, they could be considered to produce the best wine in Italy, like Ottaviano…”

He applied his knowledge of engineering to design a mechanical drill to plant vines and other fruit trees, a mechanical hook transportation system, a horizontal press to harvest grapes, solutions to decant wine into barrels, and even a winery with a press.

On his travels, Leonardo would eat at inns where he would also rest his animals. In 1514, he stayed at La Campana in Parma where they would regularly eat simple soups of bread and vegetables, stews, casseroles, cheese, cold cuts, and roasts.

Later, traveling through Valtellina, he would write: “There are some good inns where, for a few 'sueldos' (coins) they will provide a meal. Wine costs one sueldo, salt or butter will set you back ten denarii, and one sueldo will also buy you a whole basket of eggs. Add to this a little bread—which is sold everywhere here, not just by licensed bakers—and we have all the ingredients for an alpine supper to regain your strength.”

His last residence was in Amboise in France, where he traveled during the summer of 1516 to work in the service of King Francis I.

There he had a cook, Mathurine, who would cook him simple dishes like spiced custards, soups, and broths. In fact, the last thing he wrote on a page full of triangles and their areas was: "Lo lascio perché la ministra si fredda" (I'm leaving it because the soup is getting cold). He died on May 2, 1519 at the age of 67.