Bradford A. Bouley, "The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
About this episode
This episode discusses the historical context and implications of meat consumption in early modern Rome, as explored in Bradford A. Bouley's book.
In 1644 four norcini or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, then combining it with pig to make sausages, which were then sold to Romans from their shop behind the Pantheon. In the multiple pamphlets describing this supposed crime, the authors of this accusation blamed residents of Rome themselves, who had become so obsessed with meat that they turned a blind eye to such horrendous acts. This fabricated story points to an underlying reality—that in the early seventeenth century, a series of popes dramatically increased the amount of food and wine consumed by Romans, culminating in a per capita consumption of over a pound of meat per day during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (d. 1644). The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026) traces the efforts and activities of a range of actors who strove to bring meat to the Roman table. Dr. Bradford A. Bouley shows how Rome’s preoccupation with food was the result of papal policy in the aftermath of the Reformation; food, and especially meat, served as religious and political propaganda…
People in this episode
Guest: Bradford A. Bouley
Topics covered
- early modern Italy
- food history
- papal policy
- meat consumption
- crime
- political propaganda
Keywords
- meat
- butchers
- Rome
- papacy
- foodways
- crime
- sociopolitical
- history
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Pennsylvania Press
Books & works: The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy
Places: Italy, Rome
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