„O sztuce cukrowej”, czyli dlaczego piętnastowieczni aptekarze włoscy wytwarzali słodycze?

“ON SUGAR ART”; OR, WHY DID FIFTEENTH CENTURY ITALIAN PHARMACISTS MAKE CANDY? This article looks at the production of candy by late mediaeval Italian pharmacists. The author discusses the roots of candy production and shows its development was connected to the use of medical products based on honey, sugar, spices and fruits. For many centuries such products were treated as medicines and only at the end of the Middle Ages did people start to perceive them as candy. Pharmacists from Italian nations, known as speziari, were central to the process. They had access to a range of spices imported from the Orient, know-how and experience inherited from their ancestors and their own acquired skills. In effect, they started producing candy on the base of existing, sweet medical products. The richest and most helpful source for the study of the candy production is De artificium zuchari, the thirteenth chapter of Lumen apothecariorum, a work by the fifteenth-century Piedmont physicist and pharmacist, Quirico de Augustis.