In The Barberini Butchers I argue that for a few decades in the seventeenth century a series of popes expended enormous effort and resources to bring an unprecedented amount of meat to Rome. These efforts reached their apogee under Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini, r. 1623-1644), when the amount of meat consumed in the Holy City soared. On non-fast days in the late 1620s and early 1630s, daily, Romans could eat per capita a pound of meat. Great herds of sheep were brought in during the festival times of Easter, with one government official explicitly saying that for the holiday, Urban wanted consumption to top the one-pound mark per person. This suggests that Urban desired a sheep for every household--a goal pregnant with religious, political and economic significance. My book explores Rome's "meat moment" and, after establishing numbers, turns to explain why and how so much meat was brought to Rome.

The popes were eager to increase the flow of meat into Rome as part of a cultural and political statement of their supremacy as rulers. As numerous scholars have shown, eating choices are not simply about nutrition, but rather are informed by a mix of cultural, political and religious pressures. This was especially true for late medieval Christianity, a period in which there were about 150 days a year that were marked out for feast or fast. That is, on average 2-3 times per week a person altered their eating habits based on religious observance. Thus, when various Protestant faiths broke with the Catholic Church in the 1520s and 1530s, one of the first things reformers changed was eating practices. Reformation cities like Zwingli's Zurich, for example, marked their break with Rome by public consumption of sausages on a fast day. As Ken Albala notes,

Food, in this respect, was at the core of the average person's conception of religiosity, and devotion was defined in terms of the things one does, not necessarily the things one believes…

The papacy responded to Protestant critics by holding to fast days, but providing plenty of meat on other days--thus seeming to suggest that one could get more by sticking to the old faith. The symbolism went further--the most abundant meat Romans received was lamb around Easter. The significance of eating lamb in a faith in which this particular animal was frequently used a symbol for Jesus--the lamb of God--was emphasized to believers.

In addition to this religious symbolism, there was also of course the bare fact that rulers throughout the premodern world were judged by whether they could provide enough food for their subjects. By providing meat--a quasi-luxury product--in large quantities, the papacy cast themselves as supremely capable rulers who exerted strong control over their realm.

Central to the story is also an explanation of how so much meat was brought to Rome. In short, I argue that there was a dramatic reorganization of Roman foodways and cooperation of various artisans who helped transport meat from pasture to table. Individual chapters, therefore, explore the participation of artisans--including butchers, the market police (straordinari), the customs officials tasked with ensuring the supply of meat to Rome (contatori dei bestiami)—and survey literature by authors involved with supplying food to Rome. The various artisans who both furthered and occasionally resisted the papacy's alimentary aims actively participated in an early modern global dialogue about what to eat, how to eat it, and how best to use and manage animal bodies. Barberini Butchers centers these artisans in several chapters and treats the negotiation between authority and expertise over how to use the resources of the natural world.

Ongoing thread. More from Bradford A. Bouley to follow.