A wine connoisseur and a "sommelier": pope Paul III Farnese and his bottigliere Sante Lancerio in Renaissance Italy

FARNESE OCCASIONS.
The latest tradition of studies at the Farnese Palace in Caprarola.
(First cycle of meetings)

Meeting on Saturday, April 27, 2024 h. 17:00

Daniele Lombardi
A wine connoisseur and a "sommelier": pope Paul III Farnese and his bottigliere Sante Lancerio in Renaissance Italy

Almost on a daily basis, within one of the most important courts of the Renaissance West-that of papal Rome-or around sixteenth-century Italy, two wine experts were comparing notes on the qualities of the Bel Paese's wines, giving rise to the first real, articulate and animated debate in the history of Italian fermented wines. One of the two was none other than Pontiff Paul III Farnese, while the other was his personal wine-bottler and "sommelier" Sante Lancerio.
Today's meeting, as part of the "Occasioni Farnesiane" cycle, aims to analyze - in addition to the still little-known but much-quoted figure of today's oenologists of the barrelman Sante Lancerio - precisely that of Pontiff Paul III. However, not in his usual capacity as the leading man of the Farnese dynasty or the head of the Catholic Church, but in his absolutely special - and perhaps less famous - capacity as a navigated connoisseur of Italian oenology, capable in every possible situation of assessing with particular skill and acumen any quality of wine, so much so that he went so far as to comment on the tastes and flavors of at least fifty of them, many of which are still produced and consumed on Italian soil today.