WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Frugal Life: A Paradox cover

The Frugal Life: A Paradox

Chapter 2: INTRODUCTION.
By Ortensio Landi
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Health & MedicineHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)NutritionPhilosophy & Ethics

About This Book

The pamphlet argues that simple, frugal eating is preferable to lavish feasting, claiming that restrained diet prevents and eases many bodily ailments, sharpens mental faculties, and fosters moral virtue. It draws on classical and religious examples and on observations of historical practice to contrast temperate habits with contemporary excess, linking culinary restraint to economic prudence and communal well‑being. Practical advice and moral reflection are interwoven as the author criticizes gluttony for wasting resources and raising prices, and recommends plain meals as a means to prolong health, increase mental alertness, and support social stability.

THE PARADOX OF A FRUGAL LIFE.

INTRODUCTION.

THE friendship of Nicholas Ferrar, the head of the remarkable household at Little Gidding, and of the saintly George Herbert, is a pleasant episode of seventeenth century history. One of its results was the appearance at Cambridge in 1634 of a little volume, entitled “Hygiasticon.” This contains a translation, believed to be by Ferrar, of the treatise on dietetics by the learned Jesuit, Leonard Lessius, George Herbert’s version of Luigi Cornaro’s book on Long Life, and “A discourse translated out of Italian that a spare diet is better than a splendid and sumptuous.” This version was made by one whose initials, T.S., have not been deciphered. The name of the original author was equally unknown to bibliographers. It is, in fact, the twenty-fourth of the “Paradossi” printed at Lyons in 1543. This book, although it has no author’s name attached, is known to be the production of Ortensio Lando, sometimes known by his Latin name of Hortensius Tranquillus. He was born at Milan about the end of the fifteenth century, and died at Venice about 1553. He was a graduate in medicine of the University of Bologna, and for years led the life of a wandering scholar, but finally settled at Venice where he died. He was the author of fifty or more books.[A] This seventeenth century version of Lando’s paradox whilst not slavish, makes an excellent presentation of the spirit and aim of the original. In the few places where the English writer has amplified the additional matter is noteworthy. It has, therefore, been thought sufficient to modernise the spelling, modify the arrangement and punctuation, and substitute here and there a modern word for one that sounded less crude in the seventeenth than in the nineteenth century.

When a scholar, such as Ortensio Lando was, undertakes to defend paradoxes he is not always to be taken too seriously, but in this praise of frugal life and simple diet there is an accent of sincerity that carries conviction.

William E. A. Axon.