There is a central figure in the history of chocolate in Italy: the Florentine merchant Francesco d’Antonio Carletti. It is the first global trader, who started with the idea of trading slaves, will circumnavigate the earth in 14 years, however, giving testimony with “Ragionamenti sopra le cose da lui vedute nei suoi viaggi” that is the first diary of a journey taken not to exploration but to commerce.
From this trip Carletti will bring cocoa that arrives finally in Livorno, the free port supported by the Medici family to become the most important port in the Mediterranean. He brought chocolate in Tuscany nine years before he arrived in the Netherlands, it was 1608.
Only the Spaniards already used it, and this marked the primacy of Tuscany in cocoa processing a record that today takes the form of absolute excellence of production. So much that Ferdinando I de Medici- making Carletti become superintendent of the port of Livorno. Thus begins the inseparable relationship of the Medici Family with chocolate and of Tuscany with Cocoa.
A ritual that in Florence date back from the early ‘600 with the “discovery” of Carletti.
In Florence, from 1680, can be traced many writings about chocolate. (Opinion about the use of the Chocolate- Battista Felici; Letter in which we examine the reasons given by Author of the first opinion about the use of the chocolate- Lorenzo Serafini, etc).
Among these writings there is a fundamental actor: Francesco Redi. He was the chief physician of the court but was also the custodian of a secret recipe that delighted the court of the Medici for the preparation of chocolate. It was found after his death and it was the jasmine chocolate
