ABSTRACT
This chapter firmly locates Scappi's Opera within the context of contemporary print culture. Gastronomy, there has been more emphasis on the author and less on the team responsible for publishing an early modern book. The chapter focuses on what can be learned from examining the successive editions of the book, its market, and its circulation in Europe through the mid seventeenth century. It is the hypothesis that the impetus for producing the book came from its publishers, brothers and business partners Francesco and Michele Tramezzino. Inserting the book within the broad outlines of the market that Nuovo describes allows us to infer its enduring value as a commodity, as demonstrated primarily by its longevity despite the economic demands of book production, but documentary traces of its commercial life are few and far between. The chapter concludes with a survey of market forces contemporary with the production and influence of the Opera well into the seventeenth century.
