More Italian Etiquette with Galatime II

At the same time we can also decorate the table with small and harmonious ceramic objects (see for example in the photos the delight of the small Oriente Italiano egg by Ginori 1735 in periwinkle colour), but we avoid using fish-themed decorations if it is a meat dinner or using too much silver if it’s a rustic lunch. It is also possible to use a centerpiece that includes flowers, fruit or even vegetables; in the evening the combination of candles and flowers is permitted, but is mostly recommended for weddings.

From the new book by contributors, Petra Carsetti and Carlo Cambi, 

“Galatime ACT II: Life as a stage of elegance”

Many are unaware that candles during the day should not be used, not even for the centerpiece. They are only allowed for evening meals (usually after 8) and must be not too high (for the same principle as the flowers), nor too low not to make the hands and cuffs of the diners hot; the candles will be lit before sitting at the table and turned off when everyone has left, never in the presence of diners.

At the same time we can also decorate the table with small and harmonious ceramic objects (see for example in the photos the delight of the small Oriente Italiano egg by Ginori 1735 in periwinkle colour), but we avoid using fish-themed decorations if it is a meat dinner or using too much silver if it’s a rustic lunch. It is also possible to use a centerpiece that includes flowers, fruit or even vegetables; in the evening the combination of candles and flowers is permitted, but is mostly recommended for weddings.

We think that a beautiful table is the functional one and without ostentation: the furniture of the table with its elements of quality - even if few and not necessarily luxury - are just as important- as many as the quality of the ingredients of a menu! Menu that is key in organizing a successful invitation.

The first reason why it is good to prepare the menu in advance is that among our guests there may be vegetarian, vegan people, with intolerances and allergies or with religious precepts such as to require them to avoid certain foods. Thinking about suitable recipes means first of all having respect for our diners but also then not having problems in the kitchen having to make up for it with a delicious recipe at the last moment. If this were to happen, it would deprive us of the opportunity to be with our guests in serenity and for as long as we want to allow each other.— By Petra Carsetti and Carlo Cambi, 2023

Petra Carsetti was born into a gastronomic minded family… true lovers of excellent foods and wines. From an early age she showed a great passion for the table, which she later developed by working in important, well-known Italian restaurants. Since 2005, she has written many books on food and wine, along with guides to Italian restaurants, specializing also in galateo and etiquette at the Accademia Italiana Galateo and ANCEP (the Association of Ceremonialists for Public Institute). She teaches etiquette in schools to adults and children, is a consultant for various political and economic authorities, and she has a weekly column in a historic newspaper. She also writes for various other newspapers, is a frequent television guest and is very active on Instagram @galateopetra_carsetti

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and Hands at the Table

Renaissance etiquette and one's hands at the table– On the Continent of Europe, propriety enjoins diners to sit with both hand in full view of the company; most correctly, unused hands should rest on the table's edge, being visible only from the wrists. 

Anglo-Saxon table manners allow, even prefer, the diner should eat where only one hand need be used, with the left hand lying on his or her lap.  It is a limitation upon one's ability to grab things, like the decision to use only the right hand, or only three fingers.  On the Continent of Europe, however, propriety enjoins diners to sit with both hand in full view of the company; most correctly, unused hands should rest on the table's edge, being visible only from the wrists.  (Erasmus had commanded boys to “have both hands on the table, not clasped together, nor on the plate.”)  The Anglo-Saxon custom of permitting guests to sit with one hand hidden seems, to Continentals, at best a sad sign of naiveté.

One reason for hands being kept in sight used to be the people had to learn not to scratch at table. Della Casa’s, “Galateo” says, for instance, that waiters were not to scratch their heads– or anything else –“nor place their hands on any part of the body which is kept covered, nor even appear to do so, as do some careless servants who hold them inside their shirt or keep them behind their backs hidden under their clothes. They must rather keep their hands in sight and out of suspicion... .” 

This rule holds even more strongly for diners, who are constantly warned not to stroke their beards, twiddle their mustaches, rub and pat themselves, or scratch their heads. Erasmus says it is unsightly to scratch, especially if it is done through habit rather than necessity. John Russell's “Boke of Nurture” counsels against “clawing your back as if after a flea; or your head as if after a louse.” Fleas, like gristle in the mouth or fibers wedged between the teeth, are to be ignored by polite people. The discomfort they cause must be heroically endured and not only hidden from view, but kept from the suspicions of others. – Margaret Visser’s, 1991, “The Rituals of Dinner” 

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Renaissance Etiquette and Manners

Etiquette and manners were a response to the violence and crude behaviors run rampant in burgeoning European cities. They were  the means of reinforcing social order and distinguishing the privileged class from everyone else. It was at the dinner table, that these newly defined codes of conduct were especially important.

Italy was one of the leaders of the 16th century and 17th century cultural revolution, and that included table manners. Italian poet Giovanni della Casa advised in “Galateo,” his 1558 book on manners: “One should not comb his hair nor wash his hands in public... The exception to this is the washing of the hands when done before sitting down to dinner, for then it should be done in full sight of others, even if you do not need to wash them at all, so that whoever dips into the same bowl as you will be certain of your cleanliness.” 

Taking into account that one's hands were also one’s “utensils” for hundreds of years, this advice was truly of utmost importance. In his study on the social customs of this period, sociologist Norbert Elias noted that “In good society one does not put both hands into the dish. It is most refined to use only three fingers of the hand. ... Forks scarcely exist, or at most for taking meat from the dish.”

Some of the earliest known uses of forks with food occurred in Ancient Egypt, where large forks were used as cooking utensils. The personal table fork was most likely invented in the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, where they were in common use by the 4th century, though the origins may even go back to Ancient Greece, before the Roman period. By the 9th century, according to records, a similar utensil known as a barjyn was in limited use in Persia within some elite circles. By the 10th century, the table fork was in common use throughout the Middle East. Forks were originally viewed by most in Western Europe, as excessively refined. Forks were also viewed, in the case of men, as a sign of effeminacy.

The custom of Western Europeans using table forks as dining implements began in Italy. They were at first a hit, but forks were slow to catch on in Northern Europe. The use of forks to get food from plate to mouth, didn't gain wide acceptance in Northern Europe until the 17th century—and even then, only the well-to-do could afford them. 

Spoons were communally used—making the etiquette of eating soups a delicate matter. "If what is given is rather fluid," Dutch theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam writes, "take it on a spoon for tasting and return the spoon after wiping it on a napkin.

Some human behaviors were deemed permissible at the dinner table. On passing gas, Erasmus wrote, “If it is possible to withdraw, it should be done alone. But if not, in accordance with the ancient proverb, let a cough hide the sound.” Most modern etiquette books advise that “civilized folk will protect others from any sounds or smells that may be displeasing.”

This isn't to say that all Renaissance manners are indeed outdated. On respecting fellow diners’ personal space, Giovanni Della Casa wrote, “It is also an unsuitable habit to put one's nose over someone else's glass of wine or food to smell it.” And Erasmus advised, “It is rude to offer someone what you have half eaten yourself; it is boorish to redip half-eaten bread into the soup.” 

Even modern science shows that a great means of spreading bacteria, is re-dipping partially-eaten foods. It certainly gives you an idea of what Renaissance society was trying to improve upon—and how far we've come since that time period. –Some of our sources; Smithsonian.com, 2011 and leitesculinaria.com

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Italian Dining Etiquette

If you're in Italy, most likely a large amount of your time will be spent eating. Make sure you do it right and read the do's and don'ts of the Italian dining table. 

Since Italian writer, Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa, published his 1558 treatise "The Galateo of Giovanni della Casa" (the word for "etiquette" in Italian is still "il galateo") on polite behavior in the 16th century, etiquette has become an important part of Italian society. It was the first of the modern books on etiquette that was not written for a special class of people. Centuries later, Alberto Presutti is convinced that etiquette still holds the key to "an effective communication between each one of us".  

Alberto Presutti, a Florence-based etiquette instructor who offers courses on anything from dining to business etiquette, gave The Local his tips on Italian dining…

Don't arrive early or on time. Fashionably late is the norm, as Italians are not famed for their punctuality. It pays to remember this fact when you’re invited to a dinner party. “Always arrive a few minutes after the appointed time – never before,” advises Presutti. “Take for granted that your host will still be preparing the food.”

"Buon Appetito" is likely one of the first expressions you learn in Italian. It's also one of the first you should forget.

One of the first phrases you may have learned in Italian is “buon appetito”; it’s also the first one you should forget. “Wishing someone ‘buon appetito’ in Italy is impolite,” says Presutti. “This is because in Italian courts in medieval times, the prince would sometimes offer banquets to his best servants and wish them “buon appetito” – meaning: ‘eat as much as you can because you may not be invited to another feast if you don’t behave yourselves.” Coincidentally, Etiquipedia has heard that this is the case in France as well. So forget the French phrase "bon appétit" if visiting there.

Place napkins on your lap only after the food has been brought to the table.

Hands should be seen. “Wrists should be on the table, but never your elbows. And don’t cross your hands,” warns Presutti. “That’s considered rude - it may look to others as if you’re hiding something," or even - God forbid - "touching yourself".

Regarding napkins, says Presutti, “These should be placed on your lap only after the food has been brought to the table. Use one by all means to wipe your mouth, but take care that the dirty part of your napkin is hidden.”

Regarding bread, rolls or breadsticks, Presutti advises “In Italy, we are big bread-eaters,” says Presutti. “It must always be served on a small plate to the left of your main plate, and broken off rather than cut with a knife – it’s the Christian way.” Stuffing yourself with bread before the meal arrives should be avoided. Presutti suggests nibbling on some grissini (breadsticks), which looks more elegant, if you really can’t wait to eat.

This knife and fork set, while unusual, is obviously for the fish course.

Always try to reach for the right fork. “In Italy, fish must be served with a special three-pronged fork and a knife similar to a butter knife,” says Presutti. However, he warns, don’t whatever you do use the knife to cut the fish. “The purpose of the knife is to remove the skin of the fish – you can use the fork to cut the flesh.”

Most people know that food and wine in Italy are like yin and yang. Don’t expect to have one at a meal without the other. “You’ll find that the wine will only be brought out with the food. This is because each wine is designed to go with a specific dish. Red wine will always be served with meat, whereas white wine will always be produced for fish –because it has a more delicate taste.”

Forget about your diet. “Being on a diet and having a meal are considered a contradiction in terms - so avoid mentioning to the host that you’re trying to lose weight,” says Presutti. Having said that, you will be forgiven for declining dessert. If you’re a vegetarian, you may be happier visiting a different country altogether: “In Italy, vegetarians are regarded as aliens from another planet.” And take note that a gathering with Italians can tend to be a bit noisy, with several people all speaking at the same time and talking over one another. Culturally, this is normal Italian social interaction and should not be mistaken for rudeness.

As with dining in any other country, watch your host. “You should only pick up your cutlery when the most important person in the room starts eating,” recommends Presutti. “At a private dinner party, this could be the hostess or simply the oldest guest at the table. At a business lunch, it would be the boss.” However, he adds, “in a restaurant, it’s fine to start first if your meal arrives before the others.”

With regard to the head of the table; “In Britain, hosts will nearly always sit at the far ends of a table - but in Italy, they sit in the middle of the longer sides of the table,” says Presutti. What if it’s a round table? “Imagine that there’s an invisible line going through the centre: the hosts will sit at either end.”

The main article referenced for this post appeared in Italy's, "The Local"

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette, Italian Renaissance Style

They dine and hold court with sprezzatura. "Sprezzatura" is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance" or "slightly contemptuous indifference." 

Even before Louis XIV contained the nobility of France at court, groups of French aristocrats had performed an important experiment in manners. They were following in the tradition of Italian Renaissance treatises on behaviour, such as "Il Libro del Cortegiano" (The Book of the Courtier) by Baldassarre Castiglione, (published: two years before Erasmus's book "de civilitate"), the Galateo of Giovanni della Casa (the word for "etiquette" in Italian is still "il galateo") (1558), and "La Civil Conversazione" by Stefano Guazzo, (1574). These works --more philosophical, ethical, and political then regular manners books had set out to be -- were addressed to aristocrats only, although like Erasmus's treatise they soon became much more widely read, translated, adapted, copied, and discussed.

They emphasized the uniqueness, the grace, the innate good taste of the ideal courtier. You do not learn these graces, you just have them, and you know them when you see them; you recognize them in yourself and the people you choose to associate with. People who do not possess them are pitiable perhaps, but most probably irredeemable. You try your best to keep them out of your life.

An essential part of the charm of those with taste is its effortlessness: you must, says Castiglione, show "sprezzatura", a word meaning slightly contemptuous indifference. You are not trying to be charming --to try is to ruin the entire effect, for you become thereby pretentious. To "reach" in this manner is by definition to pretend to a level you have not attained. Indeed, the very fact that you are pretentious means you can never achieve it. Pretentious people sweat and struggle in their attempt to be what they are not -- whereas the elect, the born "powerful because best" (which is the original meaning of the Greek term "aristocrat"), must achieve nonchalance, literally, the state of "not being heated." Apart from the quality of being cool (that is, relaxed and unpretentious), it was very difficult to say in what, exactly, such charm consisted. One was forced to fall back on admitting that it could not be explained. The person in question just had a je ne sais quoi, an "I don't know what."- By Margaret Visser, from "The Rituals of Dinner"

Judith Martin, aka “Miss Manners”

“Galateo” by Giovanni Della Casa, published in 1558 

Of the three most prominent surviving Italian books on conduct, “Galateo,” by Giovanni Della Casa, published in 1558 and now out in a new translation by M. F. Rusnak, is the one that promotes civilized manners for their own sake. The respective aims of Baldassare Castiglione’s “Courtier,” which recommends sprezzatura, the Renaissance equivalent of being cool, and Machiavelli’s “Prince,” devoted to realpolitik (and therefore stressing effective, rather than genial, behavior), are admiration and glory.

Don’t Be Disgusting
A book review by Miss Manners

In Renaissance Europe, Italy was Etiquette Central, attracting all the fascination and ridicule that go with that honor.

English readers in the early 17th century assumed Tom Coryate, a professional jester turned travel writer, was joking when he reported that Italians did not attack their food with hands and hunting knives as did normal people, even normal royalty. Those finicky Italians wielded forks, a nicety that did not become common in the rest of Europe for another two centuries.

Italian princes, courtiers and patricians sought instruction on improving their behavior toward others. That was not a goal that often appeared on the to-do lists of the power elite elsewhere.

Although “Galateo” is addressed to a favorite nephew, only in passing does Della Casa, an ecclesiastical diplomat, mention career advancement as an incentive to learn the ways of society. Nor, although he was an archbishop, albeit a worldly one who wrote salacious poetry, does he evoke God as his source, as did the earliest writers of rules of behavior. Rather, as a classics scholar, he uses an aesthetic standard.

Della Casa’s message is: Don’t be disgusting. Pretty much everything that comes out of a bodily orifice meets his definition of disgusting — so much so that the mere sight of someone washing his hands would upset people, as their minds would leap to the function that had necessitated that cleansing.

“Don't be disgusting.” Giovanni Della Casa 

Spittle is not the only unpleasant thing emerging from the mouth, he warns. People who recount their dreams or brag about their children or sing off key are also offensive. Other unfortunately surviving etiquette problems he mentions include checking mail when in company, monitoring what others are eating, grooming in public and joking about disabilities.

Another one is targeting individuals for correction, always a conundrum for the etiquette writer. Della Casa squeaks himself through as a father figure who wishes someone had so instructed him in his youth. But he also excuses his hero, Galeazzo Florimonte, the bishop whose Latinized name he gave to this book. It seems the original Galateo, whose name even now is a synonym for good manners in Italy, once ran after a departing guest to inform him that he ate disgustingly. But because the complaint was bathed in compliments, Della Casa classifies it as a kindness.

A worse handicap is the general belief, then as now, that concern with how people mistreat one another, short of violence, is trivial and pretentious. The author, already known for his writing on subjects considered serious, anticipated that his latest interest would be considered frivolous. Being “appropriate, pleasant and polite,” he writes in response, “is either virtue or something very like virtue. And even though being liberal-minded or loyal or generous is in itself undoubtedly more important and laudable than being charming and courteous, nonetheless perhaps pleasant habits and decorous manners and words are no less useful to those who have them than a largeness of spirit and complete confidence.”

But he might not have expected his subject to be ridiculed by someone who took the trouble to translate “Galateo” (as dozens of others have, in many languages, over the centuries). In his introduction, Rusnak suggests that the book is intended to be comic, not only in its charmingly related examples but also in the above defense of etiquette, which he considers “too presumptuous to be anything but ironic.”

He then claims that “Giovanni Della Casa would be shocked” to be classified with the early- and mid-20th-century etiquette writers Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt, having nothing in common with their presumed preoccupation with “finishing schools, regulations for place settings, bridesmaids’ gifts and formal invitations to showers.”

On the contrary. The Americans emphasized the underlying moral impetus of kindness and consideration. And while Della Casa was unfamiliar with bridal and baby showers, he stresses the necessity of observing prevalent customs and even fashions, and he devotes a chapter to the importance of ritual. The Americans kept making the point that etiquette could be acquired by all; Della Casa, being of his time and station, declared that gentle ways are not for the lower classes and that “silly and tender manners are best left to the ­women.”

Therefore, implying that etiquette has lately taken a turn for the foolish and snobbish is not the way to tout “Galateo.” It holds an important place in the long and rich history of etiquette books, written at a time when the medieval openness about bodily functions was being discouraged. From Erasmus of Rotterdam, in his “On the Civility of Children’s Behavior,” to the late-16th-century Jesuits who wrote rules that are often mis-attributed to George Washington (because he copied them), Renaissance etiquette writers were all begging their readers to stop spitting and touching themselves in public.

More significant, they were coaxing people — or rather, the upper classes — into the modern idea of refined urban life. This is what makes the book of interest historically — its vivid picture of the widespread behavior being condemned. Della Casa’s explanation for his rules of dress, table manners, gestures and speech is the need to avoid offending others. That is the basic bargain required to live in peaceful communities.

Naturally, it never happens without a struggle. Although the fork had been introduced in France by the Italian Catherine de’ Medici when she married the future Henry II, Louis XIV was so annoyed to see a court lady use one a century later that he had hair put in her soup. In “Richard II,” Shakespeare has the Duke of York complain to the dying John of Gaunt about “proud Italy, / Whose manners still our tardy apish nation / Limps after in base imitation,” surely a violation of Galateo’s rule against lecturing people to death.

So the French and the English disparaged Italian etiquette, only to lay claim in succeeding centuries to being Etiquette Central themselves; the translator of “Galateo” disparages American etiquette, and Della Casa writes that snobbery and “affected ceremonies have been brought into Italy from Spain.”

Can’t we all just get along?

—Originally printed on NYTimes.com- Judith Martin writes the Miss ­Manners books and newspaper and internet columns.

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia