Describing the great banquet arranged by Giovanni II Bentivoglio in Bologna in 1487 to celebrate the wedding of his son Annibale to Lucrezia d'Este, the chronicler Cherubino Ghirardacci wrote: "Before being served, [the dishes] were paraded with great ceremony around the piazza of the castle ... to show them to the people so that they might admire such magnificence." The feast, similar to any others described in chronicles and in culinary treatises, lasted seven hours, from eight in the evening to three in the morning, during which were served: small appetizers and wafers with several types of sweet wine; roasted pigeons, bits of pork liver, thrushes, partridges "with sugared olives and grapes", and bread; and a castle of sugar "with artfully constructed merlons and towers" and filled with live birds which as soon as the platter was brought into the hall flew out "to the great pleasure and delight of the diners". There followed deer and ostrich surrounded by various pastelli, veal's head, boiled capons, veal breast and loin, goat, sausage and partridge, all served with various sauces; then peacocks "dressed up in their own feathers as if spreading their tails," one for each guest; then mortadella, hares, and stewed deer dressed in its own skin so perfectly "as to appear alive"; followed by turtle-doves and pheasants "from whose beaks issued flames" accompanied by citrus and sauces. Next came sugar and almond cakes, "junket" (a preparation of fresh cheese) and biscuits; and again goat's head, turtle-doves, roast partridge, and "a castle full of rabbits" who ran out to the delight of the guests; then rabbit pastelli and "dressed capons". There followed an "artful castle" — banquet architecture, it should be noted, took as its primary model this symbol of power — containing a "large pig" which, trapped inside, grunted and snorted among the merlons. Meanwhile, the servers brought "whole golden-brown roasted suckling pigs", various other roasts, wild duck "and the like"; and finally sweets made from milk, jellies, pears, pastries, candies, marzipans "and other similar favours". Before leaving, the guests (who would in any case return the next day for breakfast) were given spiced confections and "precious wines". This entire feast, before arriving at the table, was paraded through the piazza so that the people "might admire such magnificence".

—Massimo Montanari, The Culture of Food