Italia : Spaghetti history

We have been told that it was Marco Polo who introduced spaghetti to Venice, Italy. He supposedly brought it from one of his voyages to the far east in the late 13th century...

A century before the birth of Marco Polo, in 1154, a reference can be found in "The Book of Roger" written by Abu Abdullah Mohammed al Edrisi, a court chronicler and geographer to King Roger II of Sicily. It states that in the Sicilian town of Trabia, a form of pasta made from hard wheat was eaten by its inhabitants. This product was shaped into long strands and manufactured in large quantities for export.

The spaghetti Marco Polo found was made from either rice flour or hard wheat flour, the historical references to the variety of durum wheat known in Sicily during the middle ages, had been introduced to the region by muslims, like lemons and oranges.

When al Edrisi visited his relatives in Sicily his fame and competence eventually led to the attention of Roger II to invit him to his court and was very hospitable to him. He asked him to draw a map of the earth. He responded by drawing a map of the world then known, on a planisphere 3 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. He also wrote a book for him entitled 'Nuzhat Al Mushtaq Fi Ikhtiraq al AFaq', also known as Roger's book, to describe ' this map.

Some of the book's statements were revolutionary for their time, things like "the earth is round like a sphere. " The Book of Roger is considered one of the most important scientific works of the Middle Ages. Praised by Sicily's Muslims, Jews and Orthodox ("Eastern") Christians, it was not generally appreciated by the medieval popes or the Roman Catholic clergy, and for that reason its knowledge was sometimes suppressed in western Europe.

The Maghrebi ( from Marroco) geographer Abu Abdulla Mohammad Al Sabti better known as Al Sharif (the noble) Al Idrisi being a descendant of the Idrisi Kings of Maghreb and grandsons of the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) through Al Hassan Ibn Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Al Idrisi (493-548 A.H./11 00-1154 A.D.)

Al-Idrisi’s book ‘Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq’ (The Delight of Him Who Desires to Journey Through The Climates) is a geographical encyclopaedia, which contains detailed maps and information on European countries, Africa and Asia. Later, he compiled a more comprehensive encyclopaedia, entitled ‘Rawd-Unnas wa-Nuzhat al-Nafs’ (Pleasure of Men and Delight of Souls).

In addition to geography, Al Idrisi also contributed to the science of medicinal plants. His major contribution in this field lies in he medicinal plants as presented in his several books, especially Kitab al-Jami-li-Sifat Ashtat al-Nabatat (Compendium of plants and their properties). He reviewed and synthesized all the material available on the subject of medicinal plants and associated drugs available to him from Muslim scientists and added to it his research collection from his travels.

He contributed this material to the subject of botany with emphasis on medicinal plants. He has given the names of the drugs in six languages: Syriac, Greek, Persian, Hindi, Latin and Berber.

Besides botany and geography, Idrisi also wrote on fauna, zoology and therapeutically aspects. His work was soon translated into Latin.

His books on geography remained popular both in the East and the West for several centuries.