The first evidence of gold for food use dates back to Egypt in the second millenium BC. The ancient Egyptians used gold for ritual purposes, in addition to using it as a precious material to decorate frescoes, tombs and sarcophagi. They thought that using it in their cusine served to make contact with divinities. In Europe, edible gold arrived in the Middle Ages. In 1386, Gian Galeazzo Visconti organized a royal banquet, on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Violante.
He delighted his guest with sturgeon, carp, ducks and quails covered with thin leaf gold. Numerous contemporary testimonies tell of a similar use of edible gold in European courts, for example oranges, pomegranates, figs and grapes covered with a very fine brilliant gold powder were served on the tables of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
At the beginning of the 1900s, gold discovered a new application as pharmacists and doctors added gold to medicines, because they believed, and still thay do, that it has beneficial effects on human health as a very powerful anti-inflammatory and excellent temedy for aging skin.
