Pellegrino Artusi (1820-1911), the king of Italian gourmets, died twenty years after the publication of his masterpiece, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, a book which has gone through innumerable editions in its country of origin and in the principal European languages. This success is essentially due to the author’s method of selection and collection of recipes, picked up from ordinary people he met during his travels throughout the peninsula rather than from the existing literature on Italian or foreign cuisine. Moreover Artusi, a refined man of letters, renewed the language of gastronomy, avoiding French words and using a simple and elegant manner of writing, drawn - like most of his recipes- from the usage of Tuscany and Romagna. In 2007 a centre bearing his name (Casa Artusi) was opened at Forlimpopoli, his native town; besides Artusi’s personal papers, books and mementos, it houses a library specialised in food culture.
Keywords: Key words: Artusi; Casa Artusi; home coking; Italian cooking; Forlimpopoli.