Chapter XI: Cornaro. 1465-1566

After the extinction of Greek and Latin philosophy in the fifth century, a mental torpor seized upon and, during some thousand years, with rare exceptions, dominated the whole Western world. When this torpor was dispelled by the influence of returning knowledge and reason evoked by the various simultaneous discoveries in science and literature--in particular by the achievements of Gutenberg, Vasco da Gama, Christopher Colon, and, above all, Copernik--the moral sense then first, too, began to show signs of life. The renascence of the sixteenth century, however, with all the vigour of thought and action which accompanied it, proved to be rather a revival of mere verbal learning than of the higher moral feeling of the best minds of old Greece and Italy. Men, fettered as they were in the trammels of theological controversy and metaphysical subtleties, for the most part expended their energies and their intellect in the vain pursuit of phantoms. With the very few splendid exceptions of the more enlightened and earnest thinkers, _Ethics_, in the real and comprehensive meaning of the word, was an unknown science; and a long period of time was yet to pass away before a perception of the universal obligations of Justice and of Right dawned upon the minds of men. In truth, it could not have been otherwise. Before the moral instincts can be developed, reason and knowledge must have sufficiently prepared the way. When attention to the importance of the neglected science of _Dietetics_ had been in some degree aroused, the interest evoked was little connected with the higher sentiments of humanity.

Of all dietary reformers who have treated the subject from an exclusively sanitarian point of view, the most widely known and most popular name, perhaps, has been that of Luigi Cornaro; and it is as a vehement protester against the follies, rather than against the barbarism, of the prevailing dietetic habits that he claims a place in this work. He belonged to one of the leading families of Venice, then at the height of its political power. Even in an age and in a city noted for luxuriousness and grossness of living of the rich and dominant classes, he had in his youth distinguished himself by his licentious habits in eating and drinking, as well as by other excesses. His constitution had been so impaired, and he had brought upon himself so many disorders by this course of living, that existence became a burden to him. He informs us that from his thirty-fifth to his fortieth year he passed his nights and days in continuous suffering. Every sort of known remedy was exhausted before his new medical adviser, superior to the prejudices of his profession and of the public, had the courage and the good sense to prescribe a total change of diet. At first Cornaro found his enforced regimen almost intolerable, and, as he tells us, he occasionally relapsed.

These relapses brought back his old sufferings, and, to save his life, he was driven at length to practise entire and uniform abstinence, the yolk of an egg often furnishing him the whole of his meal. In this way he assures us that he came to relish dry bread more than formerly he had enjoyed the most exquisite dishes of the ordinary table. At the end of the first year he found himself entirely freed from all his multiform maladies. In his eighty-third year he wrote and published his first exhortation to a radical change of diet under the title of _A Treatise on a Sober Life_,[101] in which he eloquently narrates his own case, and exhorts all who value health and immunity from physical or mental sufferings to follow his example. And his _exordium_, in which he takes occasion to denounce the waste and gluttony of the dinners of the rich, might be applied with little, or without any, modification of its language to the public and private tables of the present day:--

“It is very certain,” he begins, “that Custom, with time, becomes
a second nature, forcing men to use that, whether good or bad, to
which they have been habituated; and we see custom or habit get
the better of reason in many things.... Though all are agreed that
intemperance (_la crapula_) is the offspring of gluttony, and sober
living of abstemiousness, the former nevertheless is considered a
virtue and a mark of distinction, and the latter as dishonourable
and the badge of avarice. Such mistaken notions are entirely owing
to the power of Custom, established by our senses and irregular
appetites. These have blinded and besotted men to such a degree
that, leaving the paths of virtue, they have followed those of
vice, which lead them imperceptibly to an old age burdened with
strange and mortal diseases....

“O wretched and unhappy Italy! [thus he apostrophises his own
country] can you not see that gluttony murders every year more of
your inhabitants than you could lose by the most cruel plague or
by fire and sword in many battles? Those truly shameful feasts (_i
tuoi veramente disonesti banchetti_), now so much in fashion and
so intolerably profuse that no tables are large enough to hold
the infinite number of the dishes--those feasts, I say, are so
many battles.[102] And how is it possible _to live_ amongst such a
multitude of jarring foods and disorders? Put an end to this abuse,
in heaven’s name, for there is not--I am certain of it--a vice more
abominable than this in the eyes of the divine Majesty. Drive away
this plague, the worst you were ever afflicted with--this new [?]
kind of death--as you have banished that disease which, though it
formerly used to make such havoc, now does little or no mischief,
owing to the laudable practice of attending more to the goodness
of the provisions brought to our markets. Consider that there are
means still left to banish intemperance, and such means, too, that
every man may have recourse to them without any external assistance.

“Nothing more is requisite for this purpose than to live up to the
simplicity, dictated by nature, which teaches us to be content with
little, to pursue the practice of holy abstemiousness and divine
reason, and _accustom ourselves to eat no more than is absolutely
necessary to support life_; considering that what exceeds this
is disease and death, and done merely to give the palate a
satisfaction which, though but momentary, brings on the body a long
and lasting train of disagreeable diseases, and at length kills it
along with the soul. How many friends of mine--men of the finest
understanding and most amiable disposition--have I seen carried off
by this plague in the flower of their youth! who, were they now
living, would be an ornament to the public, and whose company I
should enjoy with as much pleasure as I am now deprived of it with
concern.”

He tells us that he had undertaken his arduous task of proselytising with the more anxiety and zeal that he had been encouraged to it by many of his friends, men of “the finest intellect” (_di bellissimo intelletto_), who lamented the premature deaths of parents and relatives, and who observed so manifest a proof of the advantages of abstinence in the robust and vigorous frame of the dietetic missionary at the age of eighty. Cornaro was a thorough-going hygeist, and he followed a reformed _diet_ in the widest meaning of the term, attending to the various requirements of a healthy condition of mind and body:--

“I likewise,” he says with much candour, “did all that lay in my
power to avoid those evils which we do not find it so easy to
remove--melancholy, hatred, and other violent passions which appear
to have the greatest influence over our bodies. However, I have not
been able to guard so well against either one or the other kind of
these disorders [passions] as not to suffer myself now and then to
be hurried away by many, not to say all, of them; but I reaped one
great benefit from my weakness--that of knowing by experience that
these passions have, in the main, no great influence over bodies
governed by the two foregoing rules of eating and drinking, and
therefore can do them but very little harm, so that it may, with
great truth, be affirmed that whoever observes these two capital
rules is liable to very little inconvenience from any other excess.
This Galen, who was an eminent physician, observed before me.
He affirms that so long as he followed these two rules relative
to eating and drinking (_perchè si guardava da quelli due della
bocca_) he suffered but little from other disorders--so little that
they never gave him above a day’s uneasiness. That what he says is
true I am a living witness; and so are many others who know me, and
have seen how often I have been exposed to heats and colds and such
other disagreeable changes of weather, and have likewise seen me
(owing to various misfortunes which have more than once befallen
me) greatly disturbed in mind. For not only can they say of me that
such mental disturbance has affected me little, but they can aver
of many others who did not lead a frugal and regular life that such
failure proved very prejudicial to them, among whom was a brother
of my own and others of my family who, trusting to the goodness of
their constitution, did not follow my way of living.”

At the age of seventy a serious accident befel him, which to the vast majority of men so far advanced in life would probably have been fatal. His coach was overturned, and he was dragged a considerable distance along the road before the horses could be stopped. He was taken up insensible, covered with severe wounds and bruises and with an arm and leg dislocated, and altogether he was in so dangerous a state that his physicians gave him only three days to live. As a matter of course they prescribed bleeding and purging as the only proper and effectual remedies:--

“But I, on the contrary, who knew that the sober life I had led
for many years past had so well united, harmonised, and dispersed
my humours as not to leave it in their power to ferment to such
a degree [as to induce the expected high fever], refused to be
either bled or purged. I simply caused my leg and arm to be set,
and suffered myself to be rubbed with some oils, which they said
were proper on the occasion. Thus, without using any other kind
of remedy, I recovered, as I thought I should, without feeling
the least alteration in myself or any other bad effects from the
accident, a thing which appeared no less than miraculous in the
eyes of the physicians.”

It is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that “The Faculty” will endorse the opinions of Cornaro, that any person by attending strictly to his regimen “could never be sick again, as it removes every cause of illness; and so, for the future, would never want either physician or physic”:--

“Nay, by attending duly to what I have said he would become his own
physician, and, indeed, the best he could have, since, in fact, no
man can be a perfect physician to anyone but himself. The reason of
which is that any man may, by repeated trials, acquire a perfect
knowledge of his own constitution and the most hidden qualities of
his body, and what food best agrees with his stomach. Now, it is
so far from being an easy matter to know these things perfectly
of another that we cannot, without much trouble, discover them
in ourselves, since a great deal of time and repeated trials are
required for that purpose.”

Cornaro’s second publication appeared three years later than his first, under the title of _A Compendium of a Sober Life_ and the third, _An Earnest Exhortation to a Sober and Regular Life_,[103] in the ninety-third year of his age. In these little treatises he repeats and enforces in the most earnest manner his previous exhortations and warnings. He also takes the opportunity of exposing some of the plausible sophisms employed in defence of luxurious living:--

“Some allege that many, without leading such a life, have lived
to a hundred, and that in constant health, although they ate a
great deal and used indiscriminately every kind of viands and
wine, and therefore flatter themselves that they shall be equally
fortunate. But in this they are guilty of two mistakes. The first
is, that it is not one in one hundred thousand that ever attains
that happiness; the other mistake is, that such persons, in the
end, most assuredly contract some illness which carries them off,
nor can they ever be sure of ending their days otherwise, so that
the safest way to obtain a long and healthy life is, at least after
forty, to embrace abstinence. This is no difficult matter, since
history informs us of very many who, in former times, lived with
the greatest temperance, and I know that the present Age furnishes
us with many such instances, reckoning myself one of the number.
Now let us remember that we are human beings, and that man, being a
rational animal, is himself master of his actions.”

Amongst others:--

“There are old gluttons (_attempati_) who say that it is necessary
they should eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural
heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years,
and that it is therefore necessary for them to eat heartily and of
such things as please their palates, and that were they to lead a
frugal life it would be a short one. To this I answer that our kind
mother, Nature, in order that old men may live to a still greater
age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to subsist
on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be digested
by old and feeble stomachs. Nor should such persons be afraid of
shortening their lives by eating too little, _since when they are
indisposed they recover by eating the smallest quantities_. Now,
if by reducing themselves to a very small quantity of food they
recover from the jaws of death, how can they doubt but that, with
an increase of diet, still consistent, however, with sobriety, they
will be able to support nature when in perfect health?

“Others say that it is better for a man to suffer every year three
or four returns of his usual disorders, such as gout, sciatica, and
the like than to be tormented the whole year by not indulging his
appetite, and eating everything his palate likes best, since by a
good regimen alone he is sure to get the better of such attacks. To
this I answer that, our natural heat growing less and less as we
advance in years, no regimen can retain virtue enough to conquer
the malignity with which disorders of repletion are ever attended,
so that he must die at last of these periodical disorders, because
they abridge life as health prolongs it. Others pretend that it is
much better to live ten years less than not indulge one’s appetite.
My reply is that longevity ought to be highly valued by men of
genius and intellect; as to others it is of no great matter if it
is not duly prized by them, since it is they who brutalise the
world (_perchè questi fanno brutto il mondo_), so that _their_
death is rather of service to mankind.”

Cornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the genius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to express his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous change effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered from the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which moreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before, the beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as develope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:--

“O thrice holy Sobriety, so useful to man by the services thou
renderest him! Thou prolongest his days, by which means he may
greatly improve his understanding. Thou moreover freest him from
the dreadful thoughts of death. How greatly is thy faithful
disciple indebted to thee, since by thy assistance he enjoys this
beautiful expanse of the visible world, which is really beautiful
to such as know how to view it with a philosophic eye, as thou
hast enabled me to do!... O truly happy life which, besides these
favours conferred on an old man, hast so improved and perfected
him that he has now a better relish for his dry bread than he had
formerly for the most exquisite dainties. And all this thou hast
effected by acting rationally, knowing that bread is, above all
things, man’s proper food when seasoned by a good appetite.... It
is for this reason that dry bread has so much relish for me; and
I know from experience, and can with truth affirm, that I find
such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against
temperance were it not for my being convinced of the absolute
necessity of eating of it, and that we cannot make use of a more
natural food.”

The fourth and last of his appearances in print was a “Letter to Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia,” written at the age of ninety-five. It describes in a very lively manner the health, vigour, and use of all his faculties of mind and body, of which he had the perfect enjoyment. He was far advanced in life when his daughter, his only child, was born, and he lived to see her an old woman. He informs us, at the age of ninety-one, with much eloquence and enthusiasm of the active interest and pleasure he experienced in all that concerned the prosperity of his native city: of his plans for improving its port; for draining, recovering, and fertilizing the extensive marshes and barren sands in its neighbourhood. He died, having passed his one hundredth year, calmly and easily in his arm-chair at Padua in the year 1566.[104] His treatises, forming a small volume, have been “very frequently published in Italy, both in the vernacular Italian and in Latin. It has been translated into all the civilised languages of Europe, and was once a most popular book. There are several English translations of it, the best being one that bears the date 1779. Cornaro’s system,” says the writer in the _English Cyclopædia_ whom we are quoting, “has had many followers.” Recounting his many dignities and honours, and the distinguished part he took in the improvement of his native city, by which he acquired a great reputation amongst his fellow-citizens, the Italian editor of his writings justly adds:--

“But all these fine prerogatives of Luigi Cornaro would not have
been sufficient to render his name famous in Europe if he had not
left behind him the short treatises upon Temperance, composed at
various times at the advanced ages of 85, 86, 91, and 95. The
candour which breathes through their simplicity, the importance
of the argument, and the fervour with which he urges upon all to
study the means of prolonging our life, have obtained for them so
great good fortune as to be praised to the skies by men of the
best understanding. The many editions which have been published
in Italy, and the translations which, together with an array of
physiological and philological notes, have appeared out of Italy,
at one time in Latin, at another in French, again in German, and
again in English, prove their importance. These discourses, in
fact, enjoyed all the reputation of a classical book, and, although
occasionally somewhat unpolished, as ‘_Poca favilla gran fiamma
seconda_,’ they have sufficed to inspire (_riscaldare_) a Lessio,
a Bartolini, a Ramazzini, a Cheyne, a Hufeland, and so many others
who have written works of greater weight upon the same subject.”

Addison (_Spectator_ 195) thus refers to him:--

“The most remarkable instance of the efficacy of temperance
towards the procuring long life is what we meet with in a little
book published by Lewis Cornaro, the Venetian, which I the rather
mention because it is of undoubted credit, as the late Venetian
Ambassador, who was of the same family, attested more than once in
conversation when he resided in England.... After having passed
his one hundredth year he died without pain or agony, and like one
who falls asleep. The treatise I mention has been taken notice of
by several eminent authors, and is written with such a spirit
of cheerfulness, religion, and good sense as are the natural
concomitants of temperance and sobriety. The mixture of the old man
in it is rather a recommendation than a discredit to it.”

In fact he has exposed himself, it must be confessed, to the taunts of the “devotees of the Table” often cast at the _abstinents_, that they are too much given to parading their health and vigour, and certainly if any one can be justly obnoxious to them it is Luigi Cornaro.