L'arte di convitare spiegata al popolo dal dottore Giovanni Rajberti

Two volumes, 8vo (236x155). XXII, [2: index], 102, [2 blank]; XXX, [2: index], 111, [1 blank] pp. Editor's pink printed wrappers (stamp of the Libreria alla Minerva Verona on the front cover of the first volume). Engraved bookplate and shelf mark of Marquis Dionisi of Verona on the front cover verso in both volumes, with also his embossed stamp on the title pages. Some minimal marginal foxing, an exceptional uncut copy in its original wrappers (preserved in a cloth box).
First edition of this sort of 19th-century manual of good table manners written by a physician of Milan, who was also a poet and a writer. The work was forgotten for about 50 years before being rediscovered and reprinted at Milan in 1899, and then again other 13 times until 2008.
In the preface, Rajberti jokingly explains his reasons for writing this “frammento di galateo” (‘fragment of etiquette'), as he defines it, and how his work differs from those of his predecessors, especially those of Giovanni della Casa and Melchiorre Gioia. The book was not intended for the common people, who had little opportunity to organize banquets, nor for the aristocracy, who certainly did not need Rajberti's advice; it was therefore aimed at the middle class. Rajberti's main aim was to liberate the bourgeois mentality from the empty imitation of high society etiquette and the other prejudices that prevented it from fully enjoying the conviviality. The tone of the work is deliberately satirical and ironic, at times even moralizing and philosophical, the author wanting to mock the whims of the world and fashion.
The work deals with the different ways of inviting people to lunch, the most appropriate time for lunch, the choice and number of guests, the need to avoid meetings between people who do not appreciate each other's company, the question of whether or not to have children at the table, the most appropriate conversation before and during the meal, good table manners, etc.; but it also contains chapters of purely gastronomic interest on the number of courses (with a preference for recipes from the Milanese cuisine) and their choice in relation to the type of meal (prestigious or ordinary) and the type of guests invited. There are, of course, also references to drinking in general and wine in particular, with chapters on toasts, Bordeaux and Florentine wines. There is also a separate chapter on Grana cheese and one on coffee .
“Il tema dell'Arte di convitare - la mensa, il pranzo - non fu scelto per bizzarra magnificazione dell'irrilevante: esso era strategico nella visione che Rajberti aveva del mondo, nella sua filosofia della storia e psicologia sociale. Si tratta dei luoghi, dei momenti della ‘zona di contatto' in cui meglio si mostra la contiguità, al limite l'unità di fisico e morale: dove l'uomo corporeo che si nutre è immediatamente anche l'uomo morale che lo fa cogli altri, che sedendo a tavola cogli altri misura la propria sociabilità e convenienza all'ethos. Sicché nei limiti in cui gli è possibile, Rajberti è serio e persino grave, quando nelle ultime pagine del suo ‘galateo' ribadisce la fede nei conviti come fondamento comunitario e motore di progresso. I conviti ‘avviano e rassodano le amicizie; moltiplicano le conoscenze simpatiche o vantaggiose: giovano a pertezionare l'educazione pel contatto promiscuo e spontaneo della gentilezza, dell'ingegno, dei modi squisiti; tendono a diminuire le disuguaglianze fittizie dei varii ceti'. Tutti riconoscono nella pratica il loro valore: ‘gli avvenimenti ricordevoli di famiglia, i contratti importanti, le lauree, le promozioni di carica, gli sponsali, tutto quanto v'ha di felice o di creduto tale, si festeggia con un buon desinare'. Insomma i conviti ‘stanno fra le migliori costumanze del consorzio civile' ” (G. Maffei, Introduzione, in: G. Rajberti, “L'arte di convitare”, Rome, 2001, p. 24).
A native of Milan, Rajberti was a writer, humorist and poet (including in the Milan dialect), but above all a physician at the hos