Every August 13, the Catholic Church commemorates Blessed Marcos De Aviano, the Italian Franciscan friar who inspired the creation of the famous cappuccino drink. His name is also associated with the origin of croissant bread, also known as half moon.
Blessed Marcos De Aviano—born Carlos Domingo Cristofori (1631-1699)—is the charismatic figure who helped Pope Innocent XI recompose the Holy League of Christian nations to oppose the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.
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At a Mass celebrated at the camp on Mount Kahlenberg, on the eve of the decisive battle of September 12, 1683, he encouraged the Christian soldiers through a fiery homily, urging them to defend their Christian brothers and their faith against the invaders.
The battle ended with the overwhelming victory of the Holy League and the retreat of the Turkish army.
Today, the Capuchin friar is remembered for his life of holiness and the numerous miracles he performed during his earthly existence, sparking hundreds of conversions and vocations in his time and later. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 2003.
But something that little is known is that Marcos De Aviano is also at the origin of the creation of the world famous cappuccino and, more indirectly, of the croissant (croissant, in Spanish), two inevitable elements of today’s European breakfast.
The Blessed’s cappuccino
The exact origin of the cappuccino, closely linked to the Battle of Vienna (1683), remains the subject of debate. The most widespread theory is that, after capturing the Turkish camp at the end of the battle, the imperial soldiers found hundreds of bags of coffee, along with many other treasures abandoned by the defeated army.
The bitterness of this product, quite unknown in the West at that time, had a repellent effect on the soldiers, so Blessed Marco advised them to mix the drink with a little milk to sweeten it.
The delicious drink, which also had the same color as the friar’s habit, was then called kapuziner (cappuccino, in German) in his honor and quickly spread throughout Vienna and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire.
On the other hand, in the book Memories of land and water: Notes on the history and culture of the Veneto from its origins to the fall of Venice (2014), Italian academic Ugo Spezia mentioned a slightly different version of the story.
According to him, some Greek and Serbian merchants, who already knew this drink well, took possession of the coffee bags abandoned after the battle and opened the first coffee shops in Vienna.
On this occasion, they created a new hot drink based on milk and coffee to make it more suitable for the Western palate. The name of the mixture was intended to honor Blessed Marco, the most popular figure in Vienna after the liberation of the region.
Croissant and cappuccino, delicious combination
Historical data is more solid regarding the origin of the croissant. It is said that shortly before the battle of September 12, some bakers, while making bread during the night with the last flour they had left, heard the Turkish sappers (military excavators) digging tunnels below. They were able to raise the alarm in time and prevent the attack.
In gratitude for their contribution, the imperial authorities allowed the bakers to immortalize the victory by making croissants (kipferlnin German) in the shape of a crescent, the symbol of the defeated Ottoman invaders.
In an interview published on the occasion of the beatification of Brother Marcos De Aviano in 2003, the then prefect of the Congregation – today the Dicastery – for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, suggested that the cappuccino was created as a tribute to this miracle worker. cappuccino to accompany the croissant that had just been created.
Blessed Mark De Aviano died of cancer on August 13, 1699, surrounded by his closest friends, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and his wife Eleanor Magdalene of Neuburg.
He was buried in the Kapuzinerkirche (Capuchin Church of Vienna), which also contains the Imperial Crypt, the main burial place of the Habsburg dynasty and the Holy Roman Emperors.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.
Solène Tadié
European correspondent for the National Catholic Register. She is French-Swiss and worked at the L’Osservatore Romano in 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.