Italy a country which had been all of a piece in the Roman Empire, indeed the centrepiece thereof, led a fragmented existence from the early Middle Ages until the 19th century, when under the auspices of Garibaldi it took its present political form. This fragmentation did not prevent it from being the cradle of the Renaissance in the arts, including the culinary ones. While the civilizations of France and Spain were still in bud, those of Italy (plural because of the numerous city states which shared the credit) were already flowering.
