A must for the Italian summertime (but also during the whole year), Ice cream is well known all over the world, used in funny recipes and eaten by children as well as adults. Everyone likes it, because of its freshness and its many flavours; it can be done, in fact, with all kinds of cremes, fruits, and everything comes up to the ice-cream makers fantasy!

But when and how was it discovered?

The inventor of this delicious dessert is considered Bernardo Buontalenti, who – besides being an architect of wide fame – was also employed by the Medicis as a master of ceremony. Tradition has it that in the summer of 1565 there was a grand banquet for a delegation of Spanish diplomats. Buontalenti not only took care of the usual arrangements for the dining room, but he also created a new dessert that left the Spanish guests astonsished: icecream. Buontalenti’s icecream (made with egg yolks, honey, milk, butter and a drop of sweet wine) was made possible thanks to the chemical expertise of this Renaissance man who discovered how to freeze fat ingredients such as milk, butter and eggs. Needless to say, word of the new creation soon spread all over Europe.

Nowadays, you can still find his original ice cream recipe in the ice cream shops of Florence; the name its the same as the inventor’s one: Buontalenti Cream. Don’t miss it!

Florence and the Florentine hide funny and interesting stories; discover it with the Institute Galilei’ s History of Florence courses!