For such a humble dish, this soupy stew of pasta and beans has a rich history – and every Italian family has their own version
The man in the painting is wearing a white shirt, brown waistcoat and well-worn straw hat. He is eating a bowl of beans. There are also spring onions, mushrooms, bread rolls, a jug and glass of wine on the table, but the beans – small with black eyes – are the focus; a spoonful of them poised before the open mouth of il mangiafagioli (the bean eater) – also the name of the painting.
This delightful and hungry-making work of the Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci is dated between 1583 and 1585, almost a century after Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors landed, uninvited, in Mesoamerica, home of some of the most politically and socially advanced nations in the world and pocketed – among other things – their beans.
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