Figure 1.--We note a fresco that Giandomenico Tiepolo painted in Villa Valmarana, a mansion in the country of Vicenza, near Venice, in 1757. The fresco shows a peasant family's lunch. They are eating in open air. On the table there is the "polenta", a porridge made with corn flour. The polenta was the main food for the peasantry in northern and central Italy. It can be eaten with meat, fish, cheese, tomato sauce and many other foods. The poor, however, often ate only polenta. A pregnant woman is eating standing, a man seated on the floor and another man seated on a stool. This one has a little child on the left knee. The child don't wear any clothing. Among peasant people it was not infrequent that little children spent the hot summer days naked.

Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727-1808) was an Italian painter. His father was the well known painter Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770). We note a fresco that Giandomenico Tiepolo painted in Villa Valmarana, a mansion in the country of Vicenza, near Venice, in 1757. The fresco shows a peasant family's lunch. They are eating in open air. On the table there is the "polenta", a porridge made with corn flour. The polenta was the main food for the peasantry in northern and central Italy. It can be eaten with meat, fish, cheese, tomato sauce and many other foods. The poor, however, often ate only polenta. A pregnant woman is eating standing, a man seated on the floor and another man seated on a stool. This one has a little child on the left knee. The child don't wear any clothing. Among peasant people it was not infrequent that little children spent the hot summer days naked.

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Created: 9:13 AM 5/30/2010
Last updated: 9:14 AM 5/30/2010