In what Bolognese record collection does the oldest known written reference to lasagna appear?

The oldest known written reference to lasagna appears in the Memoriali Bolognesi. These were Bolognese notarial records, in which medieval scribes sometimes filled unused spaces with vernacular poems and other texts.

The lasagna reference dates to 1282 and appears in a ballad transcribed by a Bolognese notary. The passage is evidence for the early use of the word lasagne in Italian, but it is not a full recipe for the modern layered dish. It demonstrates that lasagna was known as a food term in Bologna by the late thirteenth century.

The collection is easy to confuse with the Liber de Coquina, a later medieval cookbook associated with the earliest surviving lasagna recipe, or with Salimbene di Adam’s Cronica, which contains a separate 1284 mention of lasagna with cheese. The Forme of Cury is an English cookbook, while Cronica is a chronicle rather than the Bolognese record collection containing the 1282 passage.

Memoriali Bolognesi therefore identifies the documentary setting, while 1282 supplies the date. Together, they pinpoint the earliest known written reference cited in standard histories of lasagna.