Interior of a House at Fondi'. Fondi is town halfway between Rome and Naples, Italy. A poor family sitting down to a meal of polenta which has been cooked in a saucepan of water suspended on a hook over the fire. Polenta flour can be made from wheat, chestnuts or maize, and the poorest people would eat it with nothing but a little salt. Hand coloured lithograph from Italian Scenery, Manners and Customs by Buon Airetti (London, 1806).