Italian chocolate: the history and craft of a divine sustenance

It is common knowledge that Italy has been the setting of great political transformations, as well as the battlefield between factions and countries, where armies of all types met and fought. It is therefore likely that the chocolate was introduced in the “Boot” in this way – imported by soldiers. However, what is certain is that Francesco Carletti, a Florentine and famous traveller, visited the cocoa plantations near Guatemala around 1591. He immediately understood that this cocoa powder used by the Indians to make their hot chocolate drink had enormous commercial possibilities. At the beginning of the 1600s, it seems that it was Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain, wife of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, who brought chocolate to the Italian court. The use of chocolate quickly expanded due to trading by Jesuits. But first, as with other doctrinal questions, the Church had to investigate if the consumption of chocolate could be considered an interruption of the required fasting. The issue was resolved in 1662 by Cardinal Brancaccio,...