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Abstract: Fat days and lean days: notes on nutrition in roman hospitals in the modern age   This study will examine the way in which Roman hospitals functioned during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the nutritional treatment provided to the patients. Without disregarding the provisions contained in the statutes of the charitable institions, our interest in knowing how the patients were actually nurished led us to emphasize documentation of a book-keeping nature. On the whole, the picture is variegated, as each institution had its own specificity. It is possible however to note an increasing difference between the sixteenth century, when a rather monotonous diet based on cereals and meat dominated and the following centuries when, thanks to the spread of foods such as cured fish, legumes, rice or pasta, there is greater diversification. In any case, as the specific example of the hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia demonstates, it is possible to find a wide variety of situations within the same institution. It is therefore particularly problematical to define a single nutritional model employed by the hospitals to use to explain the behavior of other sectors of the population.