The More the Years the Less the Food: Alvise Cornaro on The Sober Life (1558)

As in 1558 the Venetian Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566)1 wrote the first "Discorso sulla Vita Sobria", the Galenic paradigm was still undisputed in the professional and popular medical culture and it is well recognizable in the notions that Cornaro expounds and in the advice he dispenses: as man grows older, he must reduce the amount of food and beverages consumed, so as not to fatigue the digestive system, avoid humoural imbalance and preserve, ultimately, a better state of health. What has made this book so renowned, according to scholars, is the mix of autobiographical narrative, human sympathy and moral rigour, But I believe that there is also a more specific aspect in the work that catalyses the reader’s attention and distinguishes Cornaro’s Discourse. Such is the issue of the amount of food in relation to the age of man and its moral and symbolic implications, direct and indirect, which the author reiterated and declined in different ways throughout the work.