A modern rite for an old world: into a glass jar carefully pack a set of tarot cards, a sheep or goat's liver and a dead snake. The liver should enclose the cards and the snake be coiled around them both. The jar should then be filled with formalin, sealed and kept in a kitchen or larder.



[60]

At the beginning of the fifth century AD, as the Ancient World was approaching the last stages of collapse, a young lawyer was engaged in writing a work which was to preserve for the Medieval Ages an outline of the seven liberal arts. This was the De Nuptis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem artibu liberalibus libri novem, by Martianus Capella. The first two books of the work recount the wedding of the nymph, Philogia, to Mercury, messenger of the gods. The gods are summoned by Jupiter from out of the sixteen regions of the sky and are invited to attend the wedding. As a present, Philogia is given the seven liberal arts, grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music and astronomy, personified as women, and the rest of the work is taken up with the description and definition of these women and their attributes. Grammar is old, bearing a knife with which to remove grammatical error. Rhetoric is tall and beautiful, with a dress embroidered with figures of speech and carrying weapons to combat her adversaries. The books of the seven liberal arts thus come complete with memory images for their remembrance and the technique of memory is discussed briefly in the book on rhetoric. Had his book not been written at a time when the whole civilised world was in decay, these personifications might well have become minor deities, assisting the muses in their work, but as it was, Capella's work was lucky to survive the Dark Ages at all.
At the time of his return to Italy and subsequent arrest by the Inquisition, Giordano Bruno too, was planning a book on the seven liberal arts. Had he been able to write it, it would have given an outline of the place of the arts in the Bruno's perception of the Macrocosm and he would have doubtless engraved images of the arts onto his memory and like Capella, treated them as minor deities. In any case, we may be sure that under astronomy, Bruno would have presented a heliocentric account of the sun's movement. Bruno's heliocentricism came by way of Copernicus, but Copernicus' heliocentric theory was prompted by Capella, and in his writings Copernicus quotes from the De Nuptis Philologiae et Mercurii. However where Copernicus, under pressure from the Inquisition recanted his beliefs, Bruno refused.
At first we gods welcomed the return to heliocentricism and like Bruno, our reasons were theological not scientific. But as men became more and more obsessed with the "natural sciences", we saw how their arrogance was growing with each new phenomena quantified by these cold formula. Once again the world was being deprived of its inherent divinity. Where the latter-day Romans had been intent on desecrating moral standards, the efforts of the seventeenth century were now directed towards the implementation of a systematically heartless materialism.
Renaissance Hermeticism was founded partly on the works of Plato and the Neo-platonists but also on a group of texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum. From these latter texts came the urgency of the argument for the need of a religious reform, for they were thought of by Renaissance humanists, as being much older than either Christianity or the Judaic tradition. In reality though, they were written in the early centuries AD, sometime before Capella wrote his De Nuptis. Following the correct dating of the Corpus Hermeticum in 1614, by methods which Renaissance humanists themselves had developed, this argument was seen as effectively undermined.
The matter had been brought to a head with the publication, between 1588 and 1607, of Cesare Baronius' Annales Ecclesiastici. This was a Counter-Reformation reply to the Protestant view of the Church's history. The first volume dealt with Gentile prophets, among whom were Hermes Trismegistus, the supposed author of the Corpus Hermeticum, and the Sibylline Oracles of Rome. These Gentile prophets, it was claimed, had foreseen the birth of Christ and it was these claims that Isaac Casaubon set out to attack in his De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI. One of the fore-most scholars of his day, he had been invited to England by James I specifically to undertake the task of replying to Baronius. De Rebus points out the errors in the first half of the first volume of Baronius' text, suggesting that the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum were forged by early Christians in an attempt to make their doctrines more palatable to non-believers. Though the Corpus Hermeticum is reminiscent of Plato, there is no mention, Causabon pointed out, of Hermes Trismegistus in either Plato, Aristotles, or any of the main pagan authors. The texts also mention such latter-day phenomena as the Pythian Games and Phidias and quote from a number of late Greek authors. Finally, they are written in a late style, with a late vocabulary. Now, although the dating of the texts to the early centuries AD, is accepted, the suggestion of Christian authorship is no longer taken seriously and how much of their content is of genuinely ancient origin is still a matter of discussion.



[61]

In Florence, the seventeenth century marked the beginning of "the great lethargy", when it was considered better to play safe than to risk the possible failures of innovation. In the arts this lead to a preoccupation with the city's past achievements, such as Vasari's The Lives of Artists, or Lenzoni and Salivati's praising of the Florentine language. In business, the whole of Italy was suffering from recession so land inevitably became the safe and certain option for investment, simply for the security it offered. In politics meanwhile, the Medici were pursuing a policy of friendship with all, which though it contributed to the relative prosperity of the land, was also expensive. Maintaining Tuscany's independence meant forgoing the protection offered by the great nation states of the time, so that on occasion bribery was the only way of staving off an invasion. Following the death of Henry IV of France in 1610, it cost Cosimo III 150,000 Crowns to persuade his successor that Tuscany was an independent state and not a part of his empire.
To maintain the myth of the Medici's vast wealth, everything from wigs to prostitutes was taxed. For those of less conservative inclinations, a mannerist, dilettante approach became fashionable. Davazati's treatise, On Money, was written he said, for entertainment, not instruction, while On the Cultivation of Vines and trees, was intended solely as an exercise in imitating Tacticus' prose-style. Similarly Soderini's exposition on vines was not motivated by a sincere interest in agriculture but in order to ensure that our language not be wanting in georgic compositions.
Among the aristocracy and land-owning classes, the sincere approach towards the land that had been characteristic of previous generations, was being replaced with a casual flippancy so that many land-owners only visited their properties for the vine harvest and to shoot. Whereas Cosimo dei Medici, Machievelli and Gallileo all took time to talk, and in the case of Gallileo, even to work with their mezzadria farmers, by the eighteenth century they were being dismissed as ignorant, slothful and stubborn. Not surprisingly therefore the quality of the country's wine also suffered, so that at the beginning of the nineteenth century André Julien was to lament, "One could believe that this country produces the best wines of Europe; but while the people of less favoured countries are busy choosing the best vines to suit their intemperate seasons, the Italians, accustomed to seeing the vine grow almost spontaneously, and everywhere give ripe fruit, never even try to maximise their advantages. Being sure of a sufficient crop, they neglect the care of their plants, even in districts where the quality of their produce invites attention... One can find dessert wines of extremely good quality, but those for daily consumption, which might be called 'mellow', cannot be compared with their equivalents in France. Most of them are at the same time sweet and sharp, often coarse, and even when they appear to have plenty of body and strength, travel badly and rapidly decline, even without having travelled... "
"Their bad quality," Julien concludes, "comes not only from neglect in cultivation, but even more from sheer bad wine-making." Although the grapes were still the same, no attempt was being made to remove the bad or unripe grapes or balance sweetness with acidity. Though governo was still practised, the addition of some partially dried grapes to the must could hardly cope with the host of micro-organisms that the badly washed barrels and vats contained. The result was of course, that even the best wines would turn to vinegar after three or four years.



[62]

With the rise of scientific materialism, the art of memory was transformed from a method of encyclopaedic assimilation into a method of investigation and enquiry. In the course of this transformation, the qualities and attributes on which sympathetic magic depends, were stripped away, to be replaced with "quantity". In place of the symbols and signs of the hermetic philosopher, scientists were now substituting number. The concentric circles of ascending hierarchies were thought of as being connected not by magic and sympathetic attraction but by cause and formulae. Thus in the centre of the scientist's world is the first cause, the one quality by which all else is explained. With this model, the scientist sets out not with the idea of absorbing into himself the order of the world in the hope that he might stumble upon some reflections of its divinity; but rather with the intention of reducing all he sees to a set of formulae. The hermetic philosopher, by memorising the hierarchies of the gods and their respective areas of influence, could, by contemplation reproduce all their varying combinations, enabling him to ascend to the level of the mens, where he would be rewarded with a vision of his goddess. But the scientist, if he were to carry out the same experiment, would see only himself and being ignorant of his nature would assume himself to be as a god. Then like Ophion and the latter-day Romans he would succumb to conceit and arrogance, for his system is not based on love but on the lust for power.

Salmagundi

Sharp Foods:

Anchovies	fresh or pickled Lemon
Pickles	fresh Herbs
	a Sauce or Dressing

Bland Foods:

cooked White Meats eg., Chicken,Veal, Fish, etc. hard-boiled Eggs, Whites and Yolks separated, boiled Onions, whole if small, sliced if large Vegetables, raw or cooked as necessary, with as many different colours as possible, eg. Artichoke Hearts, Mushrooms, Lettuce, Beetroot, Cucumber, Celery, soft Cheese

To pickle vegetables: prepare the vegetable by slicing, shredding etc. Bring to the boil a brine solution strong enough that it will support an egg and simmer the vegetable for one minute. Then remove from the brine and leave to dry. In an earthenware vessel make enough pickle to cover the vegetable by boiling vinegar with some bruised ginger, white pepper, all spice, tumeric and shallots. Stirring with a wooden spoon, boil for five minutes and leave to cool a little before pouring over the vegetables. When completely cool seal and store, topping up with vinegar as necessary, so as to keep the vegetables covered.
To pickle lemons: cut the rind of the lemons as if quartering but piercing the fruit just a little. Pack salt into the openings and stand upright in a container. Turn three times a day and baste with the liquid that emerges until tender. Decant the brine and boil with enough vinegar to cover the lemons, adding a bruised ginger stem, some black pepper and mustard seed. Put the lemons into an earthenware jar and whilst still boiling, pour the pickle over them. Once cool, cover and store, topping up as the vinegar evaporates. Pickled lemons ought to be kept for at least a year before being used; if required before then they should be baked in a cool oven for six hours.
Mince, slice, shred or chop the ingredients as appropriate. On a large plate, using a system of concentric circles divided into segments, arrange the different foods around a small dish in the centre, alternating bland with sharp and with the colours contrasting as much as possible. In the central bowl place the cheese, sauce, or dressing. Decorate with fresh herbs, such as parsley, basil, etc. and place in the centre of the table.
Apart from its ornamental value, salmagundi is a useful way of using up leftovers and the word may be used metaphorically to refer to a miscellaneous collection of things.

[63]

From the point of view of the survival of the Hermetic tradition, a major breakthrough was made when the magus's memory images were removed from their concentric circles and printed onto cards, to result eventually, in the seventy-eight cards of the tarot pack. Initially intended as a teaching aid to help students engrave upon their memories the diverse genuses of the mens, it was soon discovered that these cards could also be used as a divinatory tool. Although the images on the tarot cards do invoke the spiritus of the gods, the attraction is seldom of a strong enough nature to actively influence which cards the Querent lays down and which he does not. Rather, the effect of the cards is on the Querent's mind, where the spiritus of the gods, drawn down by the images he selects, can induce changes in a person's life, especially if they are strengthened by meditation. In laying down the cards the Querent is quite literally mapping out his destiny, as, if he reflects upon the cards that he has selected and their meaning, they will in turn affect him.
Based on the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, the twenty-two cards of the tarot pack's major arcana, arranged in their correct order, tell the story of the year king's annual trial and sacrifice. The correct order of the cards is obtained by arranging them around the liver, with the cards illustrating the nature of the gods against whose houses they are placed. This shows the role the sixteen gods of the outer region play as the year king is betrothed to his goddess and in the course of the year, passes through the stages of Fool, Hanged Man and Hermit, before finally being united with his bride as the Magician. This symbolic journey takes the king through the four quadrants of the sky, where the celestial gods, earthly deities, under-world gods and the powers of fate reside. As the king does not become the magician until he has completed his journey and been sacrificed, it is only in the aspects of Fool, Hanged Man and Hermit that Ophion can tempt him. Hence three times in each season, Ophion accosts the king and attempts to subdue him in each of his three different aspects. It was for this reason that, after slaying Ophion at Delphi, Apollo decreed that from then on, the sky and the year should be divided into twelve regions as opposed to the previous sixteen. Despite his decree, the Etruscans continued in their use of the system based on sixteen and this was why the Roman commander, at the beginning of the final offensive against Veii, prayed not only to Juno but also to Apollo, promising both gods greater glory should they help him in bringing about the city's downfall. And it was Apollo, catching us other gods off our guard, who descended one night upon a haruspix in a cloud of thusia and chanted that fateful prophecy which lead to the city's fall. Thereafter it only remained for Juno to guide the Romans to the tunnel in the rock and the sixteen regions of the sky were destined to become a secret known only to the few.
In the liver and in the sky, the Etruscan year commences in the North, with Janus and Auora. While Aurora prepares to herald in the dawn of the New Year, Janus looks both forward and back, surveying the year that has passed and the year that is to come. This is the time when the king is betrothed to his goddess and is shown in tarot by the card of the Lovers. But the king's betrothed, the Empress, demands that he prove his love for her and sends him on a journey. On the bronze liver of Piacenza, the card of the Empress corresponds with the house of Juno and Mae, or Maia, the Mother of All Things. But before he descends to earth, the king is instructed in Justice by Minerva (called Tecum by the Etruscans) and must defeat Ophion in his guise as a bull. Then searching for a way down to earth he seeks advice from Lvsa, the Highpriestess of the Great Mother. She directs him to Ethausva, the goddess of birth. In tarot, Ethausva is the Star and represents inspiration, blessing and the hope of renewal. With her help, under the warming rays of the Sun, the king finally descends into the earthly world entering my house as the Fool. After immoderate celebrations he is taught Temperance by Silvanus, the god of fields, woodlands and pastures. Later, driving Laran's Chariot he learns to master opposites and combines apparent foolishness with wisdom so that at harvest time, having defeated the lion of summer, he himself is reaped in with the corn as the Hanged Man. This takes place under the influence of the Moon, in the house of Consus, the male god of harvests, shown in the tarot pack the Highpriest. Thus the king enters the underworld, where he meets Death, whom the Etruscans called Cel. In some tarot packs, the moon is shown with a scorpion, this being the form in which Ophion appears to the king at the beginning of Autumn. But after facing Death, Alpan, one of Venus' lasas, blows the trumpet of Judgement and the king is summoned to a higher plane, while Alpan's companions defeat Ophion in his guise as a scorpion, with their perfume and incense. From Cul, the mother of death, the king learns Fortitude after which Vetis, the Devil, guides him towards the quadrant of Fate and Destiny. The king is now the Hermet, holding a staff of wisdom in his left hand and a lantern in his right. In this, the last stage of his journey, he sees the Wheel of Fortune (Cilens) and strengthened with Fortitude confronts his destiny and is able to defeat Ophion in his guise as a snake. The final two apparitions of Ophion are easily defeated by invoking Jupiter (Tins) and Destiny (Thufltha), through whose houses he will pass. The king thus meets the Emperor of tarot, who guides him to the Tower. This, symbolises the powers of fate and destiny and the card denotes a sudden change in the Querent's life. Imprisoned in the Tower, the king prepares to meet the bride and goddess, whom he has been seeking all along. When released by a bolt of lightening the king goes willingly to sacrifice. Brought round, full circle back to the card which announced his betrothal, the king has now proven himself and as the Magician attains a beatific vision of the World. These last two cards, which together represent the king's sacrifice and wedding, no longer belong to the circle of other cards, for the circle is already complete and the king has ascended to the level of the mens to be united, if only briefly with his bride.
The card of the World usually features a goddess dancing within a circle of completion or a wreath of victory. Sometimes she is accompanied by the four symbols of the evangelists, this being a corruption of the original symbols of bull, lion, scorpion and snake. These were changed to disguise the hermetic content of the cards, just as the High Priest and Priestess are often called the Pope and the Popess. The goddess of the World symbolises spiritual attainment, achievement, equilibrium, completion and fulfilment and this includes, of course, mastery of the tarot pack itself. For tarot, as a divinatory system of images not only aids the memory but also aids the intelligence and foresight in ascertaining what is and what is to come. Following Cicero's definition of prudence in De Inventione, we may conclude that the practising of tarot, constitutes for the magician, the exercising of prudence. Hence, although Justice, Temperance and Fortitude are represented in tarot, Prudence itself is not, for Prudence consists in the knowing use of all the cards.



[64]

While the Theosophy of the Renaissance was being eroded by the spirit of the new materialism, the land too was falling victim to neglect, new theories of farming and to new crops. Where sugar had enabled the conservation of fruits, allowing them to continue reflecting the likeness of the gods to whom they were sacred for a longer period of time, other botanical and culinary discoveries were to prove detrimental to the health of us Olympians. This was because of their introduction not just as ingredients but also as crops, which entailed their being planted at the expense of the crops sacred to Olympian deities. The first of these invaders were the egg- and rice plants from India, which were both being grown in Italy by the fifteenth century. Following the discovery of America, more new plants were brought back but fortunately for the Renaissance, of these only tobacco was to find immediate appeal. For their first hundred years in Europe, potatoes were of interest solely to botanists, who would never have dreamt of eating the tubers of these strange plants. Tomatoes too, were rare. Prized as curiosities they were kept as decorative pot-plants and their fruit was thought to be poisonous. Just a pretty face... as Constanzo Felici, the doctor, naturalist and gastronome, so rightly said. The same was true too of capsicums, although over the next few hundred years, the Tuscan landscape was to absorb all these new-comers. The last to arrive was the tomato, which remained relatively unknown, until, following the unification of Italy, Garibaldi's men were responsible for bringing it up with them from Sicily.



[65]

In Medieval and Roman times the enclosing of meat in pastry in order to bake it, was simply an alternative method of cooking to roasting and boiling. Once the meat was cooked the pastry was discarded and in the case of large pieces of meat would certainly have been inedible. It was therefore often made with just flour and water and after cooking, served as a seal to protect the meat. Roman pâtés were filled chiefly with pork but could also include all manner of marinated and spiced meats, of which birds' tongues were a particular favourite. During the Middle Ages there were a variety of recipes for patisseries or meats cooked in pastry. Among the recommended fillings were pork, poultry, eel, burbot, carp, sturgeon, cod, venison, capon and sheep's tongues. As pies became more elaborate during the fifteenth century, their fillings were sometimes partly cooked beforehand and thus required less time in the oven. This meant that lighter and more delicate pastries could be developed which could be eaten along with their fillings. And so, the pâtés and tortas of today came into being, whilst retaining for me their original sense of encapsulation and protection as I gradually withdrew from the world of seventeenth century rationalism.
The pheasant was introduced into Europe from Asia during the Middle Ages but only became widespread during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when it was reared for shooting. Consequently it is as a pheasant, pounded to pieces except for my liver, that I like to think of myself as surviving the night that accompanied the rise of scientific materialism. In this respect the French habit of marinating the liver in brandtwijn, or "burnt wine" is entirely appropriate, for with the growing use of distillation by Dutch merchants, many unstable brews, which would have otherwise surely turned to vinegar, were purified and condensed into brandy.

1 Pheasant (Old Birds are best made into Pâtés)
450g boneless Pork	Chicken Stock
1 1/4kg Pork Back Fat	6 Tbsp. Brandy
450g Plain Flour	6 Tbsp. White Wine
125g Lard	4 Tbsp. Truffle Juice
4 large Black Truffles	1 Bay Leaf
3 Cloves Garlic	1 tsp. Quartre Épices
1 Onion	Thyme
3 Shallots	1/8 tsp. Saltpetre
1 Leek	2 tsp. Salt
125g Unsalted Butter	1/2 tsp. ground White Pepper
4 Egg Yolks

To make quartre épices: take 6 Tbsp. white pepper, 1 tsp. cloves, 3 tsp. ginger, 4 tsp. nutmeg and grind finely.
Skin the bird and remove all the meat from the bones. Chop up the bones and sauté together with the skin, heart and the chopped vegetables. When lightly browned cover with water by at least 4 cm and add two cloves of crushed garlic, a bay leaf and some thyme. Then bring to the boil, discarding the foam that rises to the surface. Boil for one hour so that the liquid reduces and afterwards strain through a sieve. Allow to cool and remove the fat before boiling again to reduce the stock to 6 Tbsp. of glace de faisan.
Cut approximately 250g pork back fat into 8 strips. Peel and half the truffles and place them with the pheasant liver and strips of back fat to marinade for three days in the truffle juice together with 2 Tbsp. brandy and a 1/2 tsp. quarte épices.
Fry the chopped pheasant meat together with the diced shallots and a crushed clove of garlic, until the meat is lightly browned. Then add 4 Tbsp. brandy, the white wine, some thyme, the salt and pepper and a scant tsp. quatre épices and bring to the boil. Strain the contents of the pan through a sieve, keeping the liquid. Progressively chop and pound the meat and seasonings together with the boneless pork and approximately 250g pork back fat cut into chunks. When pounded to a smooth paste knead in the reserved liquid, the glace de faisan and the saltpetre. Finally beat with a wooden spoon until the farce is smooth and fluffy. Keep in a cool place for 3 days.
Knead the flour, butter and lard until it has the consistency of bread crumbs, before adding the egg yolks and a little water. Leave to stand for an hour before using to line a pâté en croute mould, whilst saving enough for the top. Then line the sides and base with paper thin slices of the remaining pork fat (made by beating the fat out between two sheets of grease-proof paper), so that there is no dough showing.
Pour the marinade from the liver and truffles, into the farce and beat it in. Fry one teaspoon of farce to taste and flavour the raw farce accordingly. Spoon 1 cup of farce into the mould and cover with 2 strips of marinated pork back fat. Add another cup of farce, laying down a further strip of pork back fat. Into this the truffle halves should be set and the centre ones covered with the pheasant liver. Over the liver and truffles a fourth strip of back fat should be laid together with a slice on either side. Cover with a cup of farce and add the remaining strips of pork back fat followed again by any remaining farce. Then lay the pastry lid over the mould and seal around the edges. In the top make a 2 cm hole and decorate with any remaining pastry as desired, before brushing with an egg yolk and water mixture. Bake for at least two hours in an oven at 180°C, until a meat thermometer inserted into the pâté through the hole in the top, registers 75°C. When this temperature is reached remove from the oven and leave to cool for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile melt some chicken stock and then cool it by stirring in a bowl with ice until it is thick enough to be poured through the hole in the top of the pâté. The pâté should then be kept in a cool place for 2 or 3 days, to allow its flavours to develop. Should the jelly in the pâté sink it can be topped up. To serve, remove the pâté mould and place on a cooled serving dish.
Like salt, which was associated by Greeks and Romans with literary wit, saltpetre was used in the Ancient World in the preserving of meats. Deriving from the Latin sal (salt) and petre (stone), the small white crystals were scraped from the walls of storerooms and cellars. With the increasing demand for saltpetre as an ingredient in gunpowder, it was produced in "plantations" or nitriaries by mixing decaying organic matter with lime and leaving exposed to the air in heaps.

[66]

The eighteenth century, being characterised by an increase in Europe in the demand for agricultural products, was consequently a time when there was a renewal of interest in making money from the land. In Tuscany, the Grand Duke Pietro-Leopoldo was responsible for introducing a number of agricultural reforms with the aim of reinstating the hard-working owner/farmers who had been the back-bone of Rome prior to the civil wars. In order to bring this about he liberalised the buying and selling of land, took measures to maintain the wheat market and encouraged the building of farmhouses. For those who needed it, he ensured that loans from the bank were available. But a loan is more easily taken out by someone who already has assets than by those who have none and in practice, the state-owned land that was offered for sale was bought up by the land-owning classes and aristocracy. Whereas in 1720, fifty-nine per cent of capital behind Florentine business was held by the aristocracy, by the seventeen-fifties it had fallen to twenty-eight per cent. The withdrawal from commercial and industrial activities begun by the aristocracy two hundred years earlier was thus finally being completed and many of the large estates in Chianti date from this time.
Instead of the farming manuals of Roman authors, with their cold-blooded calculations of how much work a slave could do before dying of exhaustion, or of the mannerised treatises of the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century saw the founding of a number of agricultural collages, the most famous of which was the Georgofili. But these, like the Roman manuals were designed for the benefit of the land-owner and when the Grand Duke's minister, Gianni, tried to reform the mezzadria system he met with the opposition of the Treasury, the Communes and the Georgofili.
The problem with the mezzadria system was that there was little chance of farmers ever gaining independence or of becoming landowners themselves. Treated with contempt by their landlords it is hardly surprising that farmers saw little point in working any harder than was absolutely necessary. Pietro-Leopoldo's minister therefore decided, in the case of state land that was being sold or land that was being brought under cultivation for the first time, to introduce an alternative system. This was a half-tenancy, half-freehold arrangement, the livello whereby the recipient would pay a year's estimated income, followed by a fixed annual rent thereafter. In return he was free to farm the land as he wished and to pass it on to his heirs in perpetuity. This system was applied to numerous royal estates and also to the land of the Conservatorio di San Bonifazio. But while the Treasury preferred the straight selling of land in order to pay off state debts, the communes, consisting of elected landowners, were opposed to the idea of anyone owning land apart from themselves. And indeed Gianni's reforms hinged on enabling farmers to become landowners, so that they would be able to stand for election and thus defend their interests against those of the larger landowners. However, despite concessions and the availability of loans, the number of livello contracts taken out by ex mezzadria farmers failed to rise. In 1779 only twenty-five per cent of leases taken out were by ex mezzadria farmers and by 1784 it had fallen to nineteen per cent. Lacking the financial backing of the larger landowners and investors from the city, the ex mezzadria farmers were unable to survive a succession of bad harvests and would be forced to sell out and return to the mezzadria system. Helped by Peter-Leopoldo's first set of reforms, the landowners were able to oppose subsequent reform and the drawing up of mezzadria contracts was not prohibited until 1967.
The Georgofili, not slow in realising the dangers posed by Gianni's reforms, was also quick to see the potential of new crops and when Pietro-Leopoldo abolished restrictions on the production and selling of tobacco, the Georgofili published a free leaflet explaining how to cultivate it. They also promoted crop diversification and on their model farm near Bagno a Ripoli, wheat fields were interspersed with vines, olives, potatoes and fruit trees, in a tapestry fittingly reminiscent of the Roman system.



[67]

Apart from in tarot cards, there was another area in which the concentric circles of ascending hierarchies were not entirely stripped of their meaning and the magus's vision was to survive, for a while at least. This was in the classic seventeenth and eighteenth century hors d' oeuvre known as the salmagundi or salmongundy. Evolving out of the salad dishes of the Renaissance, it became popular just as spicy food was going out of fashion. On a large plate an elaborate salad would be prepared, consisting of a wide variety of ingredients arranged in concentric rings according to their tastes, colours and textures. All the ingredients were either minced, shredded, ground or sliced and through them the different gods would be invoked. On the outer layer there would be the meats, then fruits and vegetables and usually on the inner layer, yoghurts and cream cheeses flavoured with spices and herbs, together with pickles and condiments. By the time the dish had arrived in England it centred on contrasting sharp and bland flavours and would be placed ceremoniously in the centre of a table.
If imagined as turning, like the magnus' memory wheels, the different combinations produced by these three rings are capable of reproducing the flavours and tastes of history. Different allegiances and affiliations between gods show themselves in many ways, including in the foods that are prevailingly popular at any given time. Thus pears, cumin and garum are indicative of Ancient Rome, while truffles, sweetbreads and almonds are symptomatic of the Renaissance. The orders of ingredients on each circle are also to be thought of as changing and though it is impossible to realise this, just as it is impossible to make the circles revolve, the guests with their forks were free to try out any combinations desired.
For those capable of etching textures, smells and flavours onto their memories, this dish enables not only the thoughts of the Great Goddess to be apprehended but also her moods and feelings. This too, is the purpose of my wine-cellar, that in storing as many vintages made by man as possible, I may subsequently peruse through them, savouring the aromas, tastes and textures of the years. Then jumping geographical boundaries and bridging decades I percolate through the secrets of centuries, reliving the feelings of ages. For the wine-taster such a journey would manifest itself in reams of crisply formulated tasting notes. But for me the wine-red sea is unbroken by such procedures as decanting barrels and uncorking bottles; it is a continuous journey, through time in all of its infinite combinations and through space as condensed by the grape and focused by fermentation. The tastes, textures, bodies and aromas through which I traverse, are therefore a landscape, a landscape in which the feelings of the world are preserved; preserved that is, through my sacrifice and loyalty to the mother who engendered them. This then, is the journey that I undertake every autumn when the grapes are picked and piled into the vat. And it is this that is vaguely hinted at in the dish known as salmagundi.

3 Pears	2 Egg Yolks
50g ground Almonds	400 ml Milk
125g Plain Flour	8 Tbsp. Grappa
6 Tbsp. crushed Macroons	4 Tbsp. Apricot Jam
2 Tbsp. Pistachio Nuts	1 Lemon
75g Unsalted Butter	1 Vanilla Pod
2 Eggs	Sugar

To make macroons: whisk together 90g caster sugar, 60g ground almonds, 1 egg white and a pinch of salt. Spoon into small heaps on a tray lined with rice paper and cook at 200°C for twelve minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
Half and core the pears. In enough water to cover them, dissolve 1/2 the water's volume in sugar and add half the vanilla pod, some lemon peel and lemon juice. Then gently poach for 10-15 minutes or until cooked but not soft. Leave to cool in the syrup before removing to drain.
Heat the milk and the other half of the vanilla pod in as thick a saucepan as possible until it begins to boil. Then remove and cover. Beat the eggs and egg yolks in a large bowl with a whisk for a minute or two. Still beating, slowly add 150g sugar and afterwards the flour, adding not more than a few Tbsp. at a time. Remove the vanilla pod from the milk and pour the milk slowly into the mixture, beating all the time. Then strain back into the saucepan and simmer for 3-5 minutes, stirring as the mixture thickens into a heavy cream. The cream should not boil but should be simmered for long enough so as to remove the taste of raw flour. Pour back into the bowl and add the butter in small pieces together with the ground almonds, pulverised macroons and 6 Tbsp. of grappa. Leave to cool, stirring occasionally so that a skin does not form on the surface. Vanilla pods may be used twice. After using the first time, rinse and dry the pod and wrap in paper or immerse in sugar.
Before pouring the cream into a pastry shell, rub some apricot jam through a sieve into a saucepan. Adding some grappa, heat the mixture until it becomes clear and glaze the pastry with it. Spoon in the frangipane cream and spread it out evenly. Arrange the pears with the stem ends facing inwards and press into the cream. Brush the remaining glaze over the pears and cream and serve with a sprinkling of chopped pistachio nuts and a crushed macroon.
Frangipane cream is named after the sixteenth century Marquis Muzio Frangipani, who lived in Paris and distinguished himself with the invention of a scent for gloves based on bitter almonds. This inspired cooks of the time to create an almond flavoured cream which they named after him. Grappa is the distillate produced from what the Romans would have known as lorca.

---

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | References | Bacchus Table of Contents