“Hostaria le Repubbliche Marinare” Dinner Menù · Year domini 2013 Waiting for the Radius of sunshine ... 24th March 2012 Medieval Dinner for Wait Pisan New Year . 25th March:

Medieval food tasting dinner will be served in a suggestive, candlelight atmosphere by medieval costumed waiters at the

“Hostaria le Repubbliche Marinare”

Dinner Menù

“…Stranger Traveller who come to sit

at this tableabandon your hesitation

and have this meal…”

First Courses Bruschetta black (with chicken liver pate)

Marinade horse mackerel Mixed salad with cured beef tongue

Stuffed mussels to Pisan style

Second Courses Pisa style soup ( Mill soup )

Spaghetti with “garum” (sauce of the ancient Romans) Pisan pici (big fresh spaghetti with chianti wine) Wild boar sauce

Third Courses Sardines stuffed on the reverse

Grey mullet cooked in vegetables bag, with bread crusts Boiled meat with fruit chutney

Accompained with typical Tuscan beans cooked in a flask and turnips

First Dessert Course Fried cheese

Selection of cheese served with different kinds of jams and honey

Second Dessert Course Cooked custard aromatized with Orange

Mousse of pears in wine Biancomangiare degli angeli

Apple fritters & Fritters custard

Drinks Starting with... Pisan white and red wine

and concluding with... Wine confortatium (spiced honey wine)

Sitting one next to the other without knowing each other

there was no difference among the tables

because everybody was involved in the dinner ritual

to recreate the same emotion

we will arrange our guests in the same way

Pisa

Hostaria le Repubbliche Marinare

Year domini 2013

Waiting for the Radius of sunshine ...

24th March 2012 Medieval Dinner for

Wait Pisan New Year

25th March: Pisan New Year!

In the time of the Roman Empire, the year began with March calends, that is the first day of the month. When Quinto Fulvio Nobiliare needed to become consul earlier than was usual, this date was brought forward at January calends. It was Julius Caesar in 45 b.C. who made the change official, establishing the 1st January would be the beginning of the year. At the winter solstice - being on 25th December at the time - the triumph of light over darkness was celebrated as the daylight hours began to get longer. The Christian church transformed the feast from pagan into Christian, celebrating Jesus Christ's birth on the same day. After the end of Roman Empire in 476 a.C. and the barbarian invasions, in the

Middle Age free republics and city-states arose. Many Italian cities therefore established different unities of measurement and weight, coined their own money, introduced their own laws and tax systems and also created their own calendars: in many cases, the beginning of the new year would fall on the same day as other spring events or celebrations. Since X century, Pisans decided the beginning of the year would fall on Annunciation day (the feast celebrating Jesus Incarnation), that is 9 months before 25th December. That is how the Anno Pisano ab Incarnatione Domini (or Christi) was born. 25th March was thus the first day of the new sun year ending the following 24th March. The first document in Pisan style is dated 985 a.C. The date of 25th March has a double meaning: it reminds us of the Annunciation of the Virgin (to whom the Cathedral is dedicated) and it is close to

the spring equinox, when life awakes from winter harshness. That is the reason why many other cities and countries chose the month of March to set the beginning of the year, like England, Rome itself, France or Russia. Siena and Florence also chose the day 25th though a year later than Pisa. Pisan calendar was kept in use for centuries in all the lands belonging to the Pisan Republic: the coast between Portovenere and Civitavecchia; the islands of Gorgona, Capraia, Elba, Pianosa, Corsica and Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands; many towns in southern Italy such as Gaeta, Reggio Calabria, Tropea, Lipari, Trapani and Mazara; Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, the city of Azov (on the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the river Don) and Istabul where Pisans and Venetians were the only Western people allowed to establish. This calendar lasted until 20th November 1749, when the Grand Duke of

Tuscany Francesco I of Lorena ordered that the year 1750 would start on the first day of January in all states of Tuscany. In fact, the Pisan State (whose territory corresponds to the present provinces of Pisa and Livorno) had to conform to the Gregorian calendar like every other state in Tuscany. In 1980s this feast-day was back in vogue and since then the New Year is awaited and celebrated in Pisa with a number of events both cultural and convivial, typical and historical dishes being served in restaurants. Today like yesterday, the beginning of the Pisan Year is marked by a sort of sun watch: every 25th March, at noon, a ray of light filters from a circular window into the nave of the Cathedral reaching a shelf mounted on a pillar near the pulpit by Giovanni Pisano on the opposite side. An historic procession precedes the event which is celebrated with a short religious ceremony ending at 12 o'clock sharp with the ritual sentence "For the

Greater Glory of God and invoking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and our patron Saint Ranieri, we welcome the year... (the following one of current calendar)". A small marble egg holds up the shelf. The egg is a symbol of life, birth and endless story... like the one of our beloved Pisa.

Medieval food tasting dinner will be served in a suggestive, candlelight atmosphere by medieval costumed waiters at the

“Hostaria le Repubbliche Marinare”

Dinner Menù

“…Stranger Traveller who come to sit

at this tableabandon your hesitation

and have this meal…”

First Courses Bruschetta black (with chicken liver pate)

Marinade horse mackerel Mixed salad with cured beef tongue

Stuffed mussels to Pisan style

Second Courses Pisa style soup ( Mill soup )

Spaghetti with “garum” (sauce of the ancient Romans) Pisan pici (big fresh spaghetti with chianti wine) Wild boar sauce

Third Courses Sardines stuffed on the reverse

Grey Mullet from mouth of the Arno cooked in vegetables bag, with bread crusts Boiled meat with fruit chutney

Accompained with typical Tuscan beans cooked in a flask and turnips

First Dessert Course Fried cheese

Selection of cheese served with different kinds of jams and honey

Second Dessert Course Cooked custard aromatized with Orange

Mousse of pears in wine Biancomangiare degli angeli

Apple fritters & Fritters custard

Drinks… Starting with... Pisan white and red wine

and concluding with... Wine confortatium (spiced honey wine)

Sitting one next to the other without knowing each other

there was no difference among the tables

because everybody was involved in the dinner ritual

to recreate the same emotion

we will arrange our guests in the same way

Domains of the Republic of Pisa

Hostaria Le Repubbliche Marinare vicolo del Ricciardi n°8 Pisa Tel 050 20506

www.repubblichemarinare.eu [email protected]