Cornaro, Luigi (1475–1566)

Italian dietician. After a period of serious ill health, he devised an austere diet, largely through trial and error, and published several treatises explaining his theories on the relationship between food and health. Some of the first systematic accounts of diet, they enjoyed a wide popularity, largely because he himself lived to the age of 91. His Discorsi sulla vita sobria/Discourse on the Sober Life (1558) was widely translated.

A member of the powerful Cornaro family of Venice, he spent the first 40 years of his life indulging his passion for food and drink. Threatened by his physician with death if he continued to indulge himself, Cornaro resolved to restrict his diet drastically. Initially it was reduced to a daily intake of a modest amount of food and wine, but eventually it was reduced to a single egg a day.