Certainly since the mists of time food conservation has always been a fundamental if not primary element for human nutrition. So everything that could be useful in the use to slow down the deterioration and prevent those phenomena of proliferation of pathogens was very important. The most common systems were those of the salt, of clerk, of use of fresh environments but above all the use of ice. The difficulty of finding ice in hot periods developed a simple but not banal expedient, that is, the creation of the “refrigerators” of the time known as Ghiacciaie or “Diacciae” in Florentine. But many cities were not close to the mountains so something had to be devised immediate functionality. Although sometimes we forget it adjacent to the walls there was a moat of water used for military defense, so the first element of the water was insured was missing the method to create and maintain everything. Along the walls, pitches were made which were filled with straw a natural insulator in contact with the ground and covered with wood and earth. Sometimes lakes were also created for the production of ice that was cut into plates which, depending on their size, took the name of “Stanghe” or “Stangoni”. But to have the ice available 365 days a year, the “snowfall” was produced which was to be placed in the north, basement and having thick walls. Cylindrical or trunk-conical in shape with the summit down, the snow introduced by a door at the top was compressed and with the addition of water to make the format ice more solid and durable. The walls of the structure was kept at temperature thanks to the ice that melted which was conveyed in a drainage system. The method for obtaining these results in the city was the great use of an icebox also called “preserves” precisely for its peculiarity of conservation. An example can be the one in the shape of a pyramid at the farmhouses built in 1796 on a project by the architect Giuseppe Manetti according to the Retour Egypte style. Much more sophisticated are those inside the garden of Boboli built by Gherardo Menchini successor by Bernardo Buontalenti and Giulio Paris in 1612. The first icy icing placed higher was where the snow was kept which slowly drain through a kind of filter made a Stella arrived in the large circular room with niches where the different foods were kept. In turn, the dissolved snow was collected in the center of the room with a proud little manhole, from which a pipe collected the water that was conveyed in the deposits of Palazzo Pitti. Obviously these masterpieces of technique for thermal insulation were commissioned by wealthy people, the population had to settle for the ice produced perhaps in some hole in the surroundings of the Arno river or wait for the cart that transported the ice slabs. Ancient methods but effective in their use …
