The Barberini Butchers

Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy

Bradford A. Bouley

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781512829440
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

An examination of how the unsustainable consumption of meat in seventeenth-century Rome both symbolized the extent of papal power and sparked the outbreak of civil war

In 1644 four norcini or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, then combining it with pig to make sausages, which were then sold to Romans from their shop behind the Pantheon. In the multiple pamphlets describing this supposed crime, the authors of this accusation blamed residents of Rome themselves, who had become so obsessed with meat that they turned a blind eye to such horrendous acts. This fabricated story points to an underlying reality—that in the early seventeenth century, a series of popes dramatically increased the amount of food and wine consumed by Romans, culminating in a per capita consumption of over a pound of meat per day during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (d. 1644).

The Barberini Butchers traces the efforts and activities of a range of actors who strove to bring meat to the Roman table. Bradford A. Bouley shows how Rome's preoccupation with food was the result of papal policy in the aftermath of the Reformation; food, and especially meat, served as religious and political propaganda, symbolizing the correctness of the Catholic faith and demonstrating the extent of papal power. Bouley details the dramatic reorganization of Roman foodways needed to satisfy this demand for meat, as large herds of animals had to be funneled from the countryside to the city. This consumption was ultimately not sustainable, triggering a crisis that fueled sensational rumors of murder and cannibalism and eventually, Bouley contends, sparked the outbreak of civil war, as vassals rebelled against papal oversight.

The Barberini Butchers recovers this significant episode in food, environmental, and cultural history, one that brings early modern politics and history into conversation with concerns over human use of natural resources and consumption of animal products that continue to resonate clearly today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Bringing Meat to Rome
• Chapter 2. At the Food Court: Regulating Meat and Supply in Early Modern Rome
• Chapter 3. Butchers and the Meaning of Meat in Early Modern Rome
• Chapter 4. Medicalizing the Meat Moment
• Chapter 5. Meat on Display: The Santo Spirito Hospital
• Chapter 6. Castro: A War of Nutrition
• Chapter 7. The Cannibal Butchers of Rome
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgments