Un mondo di menu

Garum! Library and Museum of Cuisine presents Un Mondo di Menu, la grande storia a tavola, (A World of Menus, Great History at the Table), the most important exhibition of menus in the world.

Strongly desired by Rossano Boscolo, founder of the museum, the exhibition, with free access, presents 400 prestigious original menus belonging to major private and public collections. Among these, many will be on public display for the first time: from the oldest known printed menu (1803) to that of the lunch offered by Casa Artusi to President Napolitano in January 2011 or of Pope Francis' trip to Cuba to meet Patriarch Kirill.

The menus presented are linked to historical events and special situations, such as the celebrations for the Albertine Statute, the granting of honorary citizenship of London to Garibaldi, the Breach of Porta Pia and the two world wars, and even post-World War II diplomatic relations, as in the case of the menu of the Breakfast offered by President Cossiga to Michail Gorbachev and Mrs Rajssa Gorbacheva in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the last hours of the Titanic, the great exploits of Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, Umberto Nobile and Francesco De Pinedo, the first lunch of Hitler and Mussolini, the wedding celebrations of William & Kate and the coronations of Elizabeth II and Nicholas II, the last Tsar.

Maurizio Campiverdi, owner of the largest known collection of menus, Academia Barilla, the Istituto Luigi Sturzo, the Museo Panini in Modena, Casa Artusi, the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichschafen and, exceptionally, the Archivio Storico della Presidenza della Repubblica (Historical Archive of the Presidency of the Republic) collaborated in setting up the exhibition, conceived and curated by Garum and the international association of menu collectors Menu Associati.

Photo: Un mondo di menu - Garum official website