Chocolate, Medicine, and Theology: Knowledge-making in the Journal des Sçavans (1666)

The Journal des Sçavans of Monday 18 January 1666 (p. 29–32) opened with a review of a small Roman treatise with an intriguing title: De chocolatis potu diatribe (Rome 1664) by Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio. The topic? The legitimacy of consuming an exotic product during days of fasting, namely a substance that already seemed to be taking Europe by storm in the seventeenth century: chocolate. This text, unusually long for a review on such a subject in the Journal, provides a revealing...