ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

From Seeds to Wine: The Sensory Knowledge of Grapes in Renaissance Italy

• In Event: Tried and (Con)tested: Sensory Knowledge and Food Production, 900-1800

English Abstract

In pre-modern times, the proximal senses of taste, touch, and smell were central to investigating the natural world. Physicians relied on them to analyse bodily fluids, diagnose disease, and perform dissections. Botanists and apothecaries tasted plants to assess their medicinal properties and classify remedies by sensory qualities. Mineralogists tested gems by mouth to gauge purity, while alchemists used their senses to study substances and experimental products. Likewise, artisans employed haptic, olfactory, and gustatory tests to explore materials, developing new forms of sensory-based knowledge.
Fruit provides an interesting example of sensory practices in various fields, such as horticulture, botany, pastry making, cooking, winemaking, the production of fruit-based spirits and distilled waters, and alchemy/pharmacology. Furthermore, fruit was integral to domestic consumption, while providing insight into the involvement of manual workers and women in the development of experimental sciences.
This paper explores the case study of sensory knowledge in relation to grapes. Drawing on Italian treatises on agronomy, vine cultivation, and winemaking, it examines how botanists and gardeners used their senses to cultivate thriving gardens, identify plant characteristics, and evaluate soil quality. Following grapes in a variety of forms (seeds, vines, fresh fruit, raisins, wine, distilled water), this paper seeks to identify specific forms of sensory practices and experts across a variety of domains, asking: how do the senses work in relation to the various processes through which materials pass?

The research is part of the five-year ERC Consolidator project PROXISENSES: Entangled Histories of the Proximal Senses (1350-1650). A Mediterranean History of (Subjective) Knowledge, which started in October 2025 and is led by Viktoria von Hoffmann at the University of Liège.

Author

• Viktoria von Hoffmann, University of Liège