Writings on the Sober Life

"Students of the early modern period, literary scholars, anthropologists, and historians will be eager to have a taste of Writings on the Sober Life. This excellently executed volume will introduce them to Alvise Cornaro, a figure moving among the important members of Paduan and Venetian academic and courtly life. The general reader who is interested in folklore and foodways will also find Cornaro's Writings on the Sober Life satisfying, for it offers a glimpse into an early modern common-sense approach to bringing order to the chaotic life most of us lead most of the time." -- Dennis Looney, Department of French and Italian, University of Pittsburgh

This edition offers the most coherent, uncensored, and complete rendering of this Early Modern classic ever available in English.

Alvise Cornaro (c.1484–1566) was the son of a Paduan innkeeper with presumed ties to the patrician Cornaro family of Venice. Highly ambitious, he acquired a name for himself as a businessman, architect, and patron of the arts. Critically ill around age 40 – likely with diabetes and gout – he resolved to abandon his intemperate lifestyle. The strict rules regarding food and drink that he adopted and which led to his recovery are outlined in his most famous treatise, the Vita Sobria (1558). The work, which featured prescriptions for living to 100 years – stressing healthy lifestyle, proper diet, and avoidance of excess –became an international success.

This edition offers the most comprehensive and faithful version of this early modern classic ever available in English, and includes Cornaro’s Aggionta (“Addition”), translated here for the first time. An introductory essay by the late Marisa Milani offers biographical background and analysis and discusses the work’s publication history. The volume also presents letters by Cornaro’s contemporaries commenting on the treatise as well as his Eulogy, now viewed as having been written by Cornaro himself. A foreword by award-winning health journalist Greg Critser speaks to the continuing relevance of Cornaro’s fascinating and seminal work.