In fifteenth-century Florence, a refined meal alternates two services. The "servizio di credenza" gathers cold dishes arranged on the buffet (the credenzone): cured meats, cheeses, fruits, cold pies, and sweets. The "servizio di cucina" brings hot dishes from the kitchen: soups, roasts, blancmange. Meals are not served as a single course: the table opens and closes with cold dishes, is warmed by hot ones, and everything is sprinkled with spices and sugar—a mark of mercantile refinement.

Refined Florentine cuisine is recognized by its generous use of costly spices—saffron that gilds dishes, cinnamon, ginger, cloves—and the agrodolce taste, that marriage of vinegar and sugar (or honey and grapes) which coats roasts and sauces. Sugar is not reserved for sweets: it seasons savory dishes, a sign of wealth and good taste at the table of a prosperous painter.