Le forme della cucina a Cencelle. Fattori dimensionali e capienze per una ricostruzione dei set da cucina medievali

The town of Leopoli-Cencelle, founded in the middle of the 9th century by Pope Leo IV in northern Lazio, shows a continuity of life at least until the 17th century, first as an urban centre and then as a farmstead. In the context of the archaeological excavation project, which has been carried out for almost thirty years by Sapienza University of Rome, there is a growing need to focus research on aspects that involve the social dimension of the vessels used in everyday life. In particular, the pottery classes used for cooking are very well suited to this type of research and, in this view, the dimensional value of the vessels plays an important role. It allows us to establish the size ranges of the pots belonging to the cooking battery, relating to the number of people for whom it was possible to cook, the food requirements, the individual or collective mode of cooking, and the real needs of everyday life. The values obtained, characteristic of the town of Cencelle, will then be compared with those of neighbouring towns and areas or with nearby regions, in order to provide us with a term of comparison between different low-medieval realities and to create social models, based on parameters that are difficult to consider in the field of pottery studies.