Even more than a person, Artusi is a cookery book, indeed, the cookery book par excellence, at the very heart of modern Italian cuisine. With fifteen editions in twenty years, from 1891 to 1911, which were compiled and revised directly by the author, the book has since then been re-edited, copied, plagiarized and translated into many languages right up to the present day. Incredible luck for any book, even more so for a recipe book, a Manuale pratico per le famiglie (A Practical Manual for the Family), as written on the front cover of Scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well). But it is precisely in these words that the key to such an overwhelming and unexpected success lies: a simple gastronomic programme that anyone can follow, summed up in the triad Igiene - Economia - Buon gusto (Hygiene - Economy - good Taste) which also dominates the cover. On these simple bases, Artusi put together the first Italian gastronomic profile in 790 recipes, which became a yardstick for all subsequent authors.

Le Mariette
Artusi was not a chef. The recipes that would enter his book were tried and tested in his home kitchen with the aid of Francesco Ruffilli of Forlimpopoli and, in particular, with that of Marietta Sabatini di Massa e Cozzile (Pistoia), an intelligent and enterprising young girl – as we know from the letters she wrote to Artusi. Indeed, Artusi dedicated the recipe Panettone Marietta to her. Pellegrino was so grateful to his fellow collaborators that, in his testament, he left them the royalty rights of La Scienza in cucina because “they contributed to the positive outcome of the book”. The Associazione delle Mariette (Mariettes’ Association) was established in Forlimpopoli in the name of the loyal cook, and operates today in the Artusi Home to preserve the practices and gastronomical knowledge which have been handed down over the generations mainly (though not exclusively) by women.