In a rich and engaging book that illuminates the lives and attitudes of peasants in preindustrial Europe, Piero Camporesi makes the unexpected and fascinating claim that these people lived in a state of almost permanent hallucination, drugged by their very hunger or by bread adulterated with hallucinogenic herbs. The use of opiate products, administered even to infants and children, was widespread and was linked to a popular mythology in which herbalists and exorcists were important cultural figures. Through a careful reconstruction of the everyday lives of peasants, beggars, and the poor, Camporesi presents a vivid and disconcerting image of early modern Europe as a vast laboratory of dreams. "Camporesi is as much a poet as a historian. . . . His appeal is to the senses as well as to the mind. . . . Fascinating in its details and compelling in its overall message."—Vivian Nutton, Times Literary Supplement "It is not often that an academic monograph in history is also a book to fascinate the discriminating general reader. Bread of Dreams is just that."—Kenneth McNaught, Toronto Star "Not religion but bread was the opiate of the poor, Mr. Camporesi argues. . . . Food has always been a social and mythological construct that conditions what we vainly imagine to be matters of personal taste. Our hunger for such works should tell us that food is not only good but essential to think and to read as if our lives depended on it, which they do."—Betty Fussell, New York Times Book Review

Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Camporesi, Piero

Cooking Education & Reference

University of Chicago Press

The Fear of Hell is a provocative study of two of the most powerful images in Christianity—hell and the eucharist. Drawing upon the writings of Italian preachers and theologians of the Counter-Reformation, Piero Camporesi demonstrates the extraordinary power of the Baroque imagination to conjure up punishments, tortures, and the rewards of sin.
In the first part of the book, Camporesi argues that hell was a very real part of everyday life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Preachers portrayed hell in images typical of common experience, comparing it to a great city, a hospital, a prison, a natural disaster, a rioting mob, or a feuding family. The horror lay in the extremes to which these familiar images could be taken. The city of hell was not an ordinary city, but a filthy, stinking, and overcrowded place, an underworld "sewer" overflowing with the refuse of decaying flesh and excrement—shocking but not beyond human imagination. 
What was most disturbing about this grotesque imagery was the realization by the people of the day that the punishment of afterlife was an extension of their daily experience in a fallen world. Thus, according to Camporesi, the fear of hell had many manifestations over the centuries, aided by such powerful promoters as Gregory the Great and Dante, but ironically it was during the Counter-Reformation that hell's tie with the physical world became irrevocable, making its secularization during the Enlightenment ultimately easier. The eucharist, or host, the subject of the second part of the book, represented corporeal salvation for early modern Christians and was therefore closely linked with the imagery of hell, the place of perpetual corporeal destruction. As the bread of life, the host possessed many miraculous powers of healing and sustenance, which made it precious to those in need. In fact, it was seen to be so precious to some that Camporesi suggests that there was a "clandestine consumption of the sacred unleavened bread, a network of dealers and sellers" and a "market of consumers." But to those who ate the host unworthily was the prospect of swift retribution. One wicked priest continued to celebrate the mass despite his sin, and as a result, "his tongue and half of his face became rotten, thus demonstrating, unwillingly, by the stench of his decaying face, how much the pestiferous smell of his contaminated heart was abominable to God." When received properly, however, the host was a source of health and life both in this world and in the world to come. 
Written with style and imagination, The Fear of Hell offers a vivid and scholarly examination of themes central to Christian culture, whose influence can still be found in our beliefs and customs today.

The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Penn State University Press

What significance did the body have for the obsessively religious, superstitious, yet materially bound minds of the pre-industrial age? The human body was a constant prey to disease, plague, unhealthy living conditions, the evil effects of druggery and nutritional deficiency, yet the saints seemed to testify to the existence of life beyond this, to a tangible Garden of Eden where all suffering was reversed. The right to entry to this haven was also seen in corporeal terms. The practice of abstemiousness, self-inflicted torture, even the courting of humiliation could trigger visions of beatitude, of the longed-for paradise. In this extraordinary and often astounding book, Professor Camporesi traces these experiences back to various documents across the centuries and explores the juxtaposition of medicine and sorcery, cookery and surgery, pharmacy and alchemy. He opens the window on a fascinating and colourful, if at times violent, world: of levitating and gyrating saints, gardens full of candied fruits and crystalline fountains, amazing exorcisms and arcane medical practices.

The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 17)

History

Europe

Cambridge University Press

What significance did the body have for the obsessively religious, superstitious, yet materially bound minds of the pre-industrial age? The human body was a constant prey to disease, plague, unhealthy living conditions, the evil effects of druggery and nutritional deficiency, yet the saints seemed to testify to the existence of life beyond this, to a tangible Garden of Eden where all suffering was reversed. The right to entry to this haven was also seen in corporeal terms. The practice of abstemiousness, self-inflicted torture, even the courting of humiliation could trigger visions of beatitude, of the longed-for paradise. In this extraordinary and often astounding book, Professor Camporesi traces these experiences back to various documents across the centuries and explores the juxtaposition of medicine and sorcery, cookery and surgery, pharmacy and alchemy. He opens the window on a fascinating and colourful, if at times violent, world: of levitating and gyrating saints, gardens full o

Piero Camporesi is one of the most original and exciting cultural historians in Europe today. In this remarkable book he examines the imaginative world of poor and ordinary people in pre-industrial Europe, exploring their everyday preoccupations, fears and fantasies. Camporesi develops the startling claim that many people in early modern Europe lived in a state of almost permanent hallucination, drugged by their hunger or by bread adulterated with hallucinogenic herbs. The use of opiate products, administered even to children and infants, was widespread and was linked to a popular mythology in which herbalists and exorcists were important cultural figures. Through a careful reconstruction of the everyday imaginative life of peasants, beggars and the poor, Camporesi presents a vivid and disconcerting image of early modern Europe as a vast laboratory of dreams. The book should be of interest to university students and academics in medieval and early modern European history, literature, sociology and anthropology; and general readers interested in life in pre-industrial Europe.

Bread of dreams: Food and fantasy in early modern Europe

Polity Press in association with B. Blackwell

This book is a brilliant account of medieval and early modern attitudes to the cosmos in general and the human body in particular, written by one of the foremost historians of folklore and popular beliefs in Europe today.

The Anatomy of the Senses: Natural Symbols in Medieval and Early Modern Italy

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Polity

The Magic Harvest  is a rich and wide-ranging account of the history of popular beliefs about food, written by one of Europe's most important and original historians of food and culture.

Magic Harvest

This is a concise and elegant account of the eating and drinking habits of the upper classes in the eighteenth century.

Exotic Brew: The Art of Living in the Age of Enlightenment

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Polity Pr

World

Polity Press

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Books by Camporesi, Piero

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Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe

Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe

The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe

The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 17)

The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 17)

Bread of dreams: Food and fantasy in early modern Europe

The Anatomy of the Senses: Natural Symbols in Medieval and Early Modern Italy

Magic Harvest

Exotic Brew: The Art of Living in the Age of Enlightenment

Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe