Cannibalism Warfare And Food Shortages In Renaissance Rome

In Rome in 1644, four butchers were accused of killing seven of their fellow Roman citizens, stripping the meat from their bones, and grinding it together with pork to make sausage, which was then sold from their shop behind the Pantheon. Although the butchers were quickly executed, their tale was not so easily forgotten. In pamphlets issued around the event, the story of the butchers turned into a morality tale about what to and not to eat. Using these pamphlets, along with trial documents, edicts, and other contemporary diaries, historian Bradford Bouley explores the context of this unusual story of cannibalism, the veracity of the sources, and the meaning of meat and the ways it was produced in early modern Rome. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39336]