Note 628 — Chapter XXVI · THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Reading edition
Marcus Gavius Apicius was a celebrated epicure of the time of Augustus and Tiberius. He was the author of a famous cook-book intended for the gratification of high-livers. Though worth a fortune, he was haunted by a fear of starving to death and eventually poisoned himself to escape such a fate. There was another Apicius in the third century who compiled a well-known collection of recipes for cooking, in ten books, entitled De Re Coquinaria. It is not quite clear which Apicius Petrarch had in mind.