The Mediterranean diet of an Italian worker of the sixteenth century portrayed by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609)

Excerpt

The “Beaneater” (Il Mangiafagioli) is a painting (Fig. 1) by Annibale Carracci, housed in the Gallery of Palazzo Colonna in Rome. Annibale Carracci was the most authoritative member of a family of artists including his brother Agostino (1557–1602) and their elder cousin Ludovico (1555–1619). The Carraccis’ studio was considered an Academy (called Academy of Incamminati, i.e. of “those opening a new way”) and became a reference point for the Emilian Baroque Bolognese School characterized by the Annibale Carracci eclecticism. The Artist pursued a formal and chromatic research which combined the Florentine and Venetian Renaissance lessons. (http://​www.​treccani.​it/​enciclopedia/​annibale-carracci/​ last access December 15, 2018) The “Beaneater” depicts an everyday life subject with a popular style, very far from the academic and classicistic composure of the contemporary religious art representations, such as the “Assumption of the Virgin” (1600–1601—Rome, Santa Maria del Popolo). The “Beaneater”, painted in Bologna, is characterized by a folksy style and may be considered a broadly and realistically painted still life, which owes much to Flemish paintings. The lunch of the presumed Bolognese man deserves our attention. The bowl of beans, the shallot, the mushroom caps, the white bread and the flask of red wine that can be seen on the poorly laid table are the basis of the pyramid of the Mediterranean diet.

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