Michaelangelo’s Illustrated Grocery List

Even Michaelangelo, the great Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer of the High Renaissance needed to eat. This illustrated grocery list, scrawled on the back of an envelope, was solely drawn to assist his servant in getting what he needed.

“Because the servant he was sending to market was illiterate, Michelangelo illustrated the shopping lists — a herring, tortelli, two fennel soups, four anchovies and ‘a small quarter of a rough wine’ — with rushed (and all the more exquisite for it) caricatures in pen and ink.” – Steve Duin, The Oregonian, October 17, 2009

The works of Michaelangelo, including this list, are permanently housed at Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Italy.

image via Casa Buonarroti

via Bibliokept, Open Culture, The Oregonian