The Origin of Pizza: From Neapolitan Streets to the World

In 1831, American inventor Samuel Morse described the pizza he first encountered on the streets of Naples as “bread just extracted from a sewer — altogether the most repulsive food imaginable.”^[8] Exactly 186 years later, in 2017, UNESCO inscribed the art of those very Neapolitan pizza makers as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.^[19] From “repulsive food of the poor” to “a heritage humanity must preserve” — what on earth happened to pizza in between?

The answer lies in one ingredient, one allegedly forged letter, and millions of immigrants.

Pizza’s Distant Ancestors: Ancient Flatbreads

Humanity’s First Flatbreads

The essence of pizza is simple: a flat, baked bread topped with various ingredients. Viewed from this angle, pizza’s history stretches far further back than modern-day Naples.

Archaeological evidence shows that humans were already making and eating flatbreads around 12,400 BC in the region of present-day Jordan.^[1] Ground from wild barley, wheat, and oats and baked into a dough, these breads can be considered pizza’s most distant ancestors.

Ancient Egyptians ate flatbreads topped with herbs, olive oil, and spices.^[2] Records from around 2200 BC describe Egyptians placing a spice blend called dukkah on their flatbreads.^[2]

Greece’s Plakous and Rome’s Panis Focacius

The ancient Greeks made a flatbread called plakous.^[2] Topped with herbs, onions, cheese, and garlic, this bread can be seen as the prototype of the modern pizza.

The Romans took this concept even further. A Roman flatbread called panis focacius is the direct ancestor of modern focaccia and a forerunner of pizza.^[3] Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote in his Naturalis Historia about flatbreads topped with cheese and honey, and sometimes garlic, oil, or anchovies.^[3]

In 2023, a remarkable discovery was made at the Pompeii archaeological site. A fresco depicting a flatbread alongside various fruits was unearthed, and researchers interpreted it as evidence of pizza’s distant ancestor.^[4]

The First Appearance of the Word “Pizza”

When did the word “pizza” first appear? Remarkably, the record is found in Gaeta, Italy in the year 997.^[5]

A Latin document from that time contains the very first written mention of the word “pizza.” However, this early “pizza” was quite different from what we know today — there were no tomatoes and no mozzarella in those days.

The word later spread throughout central and southern Italy, and underwent a particularly unique evolution in Naples.^[5]

Naples’ Innovation: Born as Food for the Common People

18th-Century Naples: A Quick Meal for the Poor

The direct prototype of modern pizza was born in 18th-century Naples. At the time, Naples was one of the largest cities in Europe, with a population exceeding 400,000.^[6]

Naples was home to a large urban underclass known as the lazzaroni. Living day to day on odd jobs, they needed food that was fast, cheap, and filling.^[6] Pizza met this demand perfectly. A thin spread of dough topped with olive oil, lard, garlic, and salt, baked in a wood-fired oven, produced an affordable meal in no time.

At the time, pizza was not eaten in restaurants. Pizzaiuolo ambulante — roaming pizza vendors — walked the streets selling pizza.^[6] They carried small tin braziers loaded with pizza on their heads, making theirs the world’s very first “pizza delivery.”

The Meeting with Tomatoes: A Revolutionary Change

What makes pizza unmistakably pizza today is, without a doubt, tomato sauce. But tomatoes are not native to Europe. Tomatoes were a New World crop brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century.^[7]

When tomatoes first arrived in Europe, they were mistakenly believed to be poisonous and treated as ornamental plants for centuries.^[7] But Naples’ poor were different. Between the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the impoverished people of Naples began placing tomatoes on their flatbreads.^[7]

By the end of the 18th century, tomato-topped pizza had become a daily food among Naples’ working class. Samuel F.B. Morse, the American famous for inventing the telegraph, wrote of this strange bread during his 1831 visit to Naples: “A piece of bread covered with sliced tomatoes, small fish, black pepper, and the like — just extracted from a sewer — it looked altogether like the most repulsive food imaginable.”^[8] Hard to believe today, but at the time, the upper classes saw pizza as food for the poor.

The World’s First Pizzeria and the Legend of Pizza Margherita

Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba: The World’s First Pizza Shop

As pizza grew increasingly popular in Naples, sit-down pizza shops began to appear where ordinary people could eat. Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba, which opened in 1830, is generally considered the world’s first pizza restaurant.^[9]

Originally established in 1738 as a vendor selling pizza on the street, the shop transformed in 1830 into a proper indoor restaurant with tables.^[9] The wood-fired oven was still built into the floor, and the pizza artisans used long wooden paddles (pizza peels) to bake and retrieve their pies.

Port’Alba is still operating in Naples today, proudly holding the title of the world’s oldest pizza restaurant while adhering to its traditional recipes.

Queen Margherita and Pizza Margherita: Legend or Fact?

The most famous story in pizza history is the legend of the birth of Pizza Margherita in 1889.

The story goes like this: In 1889, King Umberto I of the House of Savoy — the dynasty that unified Italy — and his queen, Margherita of Savoy, visited Naples. Tired of sumptuous banquet food, the queen requested to taste pizza, the humble food of the Neapolitan commoners. The Neapolitan royal household accordingly placed an order with Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi.^[10]

Esposito prepared three pizzas. The one that particularly pleased the queen was topped with tomatoes (red), mozzarella (white), and basil (green) — representing the three colors of the Italian flag. Esposito named this pizza after the queen, calling it Pizza Margherita. The queen reportedly sent a letter of thanks, and that letter is preserved at Pizzeria Brandi to this day.^[10]

However, this story is historically disputed. Research by historian Zachary Nowak and others suggests the letter may be a forgery.^[11] There is no mention whatsoever of this event in the official court newspaper of the time, and the handwriting on the letter does not match that of the court official responsible.^[11]

Even more interesting is the fact that records show a pizza topped with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil already existed in Naples as early as 1796–1810.^[11] This means the pizza may not have been newly created for Queen Margherita at all.

Historians suspect this story was fabricated by the Brandi family in the 1930s for promotional purposes during the Great Depression.^[11] Whatever the truth, the Pizza Margherita legend played a decisive role in elevating pizza from street food to something “fit for royalty.”

Pizza Conquers the World: The Miracle Made by Immigrants

Italian Immigrants and Pizza in America

Pizza’s spread beyond Italy to the rest of the world was made possible by the great wave of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From the 1880s to the 1920s, approximately four million Italians emigrated to the United States in search of a better life.^[12] A significant number of them came from Naples and the surrounding Campania region. They carried the flavors and recipes of their homeland across the ocean and began opening pizza shops in Italian immigrant communities such as New York’s Little Italy, New Jersey, Boston, and Chicago.

In 1905, Lombardi’s, which opened at 53½ Spring Street in New York, is widely recognized as America’s first pizza shop.^[13] For a long time, Neapolitan-born Gennaro Lombardi was credited as the founder, but a 2019 study raised the possibility that Filippo Milone was the actual founder.^[14] Regardless, this pizza shop became the “mother shop” of countless American pizzerias, as its pizza artisans went on to open their own establishments across the country.

In its early days, American pizza was still food eaten within Italian immigrant communities. English-speaking Americans showed little interest in it.

World War II and the Popularization of Pizza

The turning point that spread pizza across America was World War II.^[15]

Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers deployed to the Italian front tasted pizza for the first time in Italy and were immediately won over. When the war ended and the soldiers returned home, they began seeking out pizza back home.^[15]

In the 1950s, pizza spread rapidly across the United States. In 1953, the New York Times reported: “Pizza is already creating such an enormous culinary sensation that it threatens to rival hot dogs and hamburgers.”^[15]

The Birth of American-Style Pizza: New York Style and Chicago Deep-Dish

In America, pizza was not simply a copy of Italian pizza. Americans adapted it in their own way.

New York-style pizza is characterized by its thin, large dough.^[16] A culture of folding a large slice in half and eating it standing up developed in New York. The unique texture of the dough — a product of the intense heat of coal-fired ovens and New York’s water — is often cited as giving New York pizza its distinctive character.

Chicago deep-dish pizza was developed in 1943 by Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo, founders of Pizzeria Uno.^[16] Made by pressing thick dough into a deep pan, then layering cheese, toppings, and tomato sauce in that order and baking it for a long time, the result is more of a hearty pie than a pizza.

The Rise of Pizza Chains and a Global Industry

Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Caesars: The Chain Revolution

What truly made pizza a global industry was the rise of pizza chains.

• Pizza Hut: Founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by brothers Dan Carney and Frank Carney.^[17] Today it operates more than 18,000 locations in over 100 countries.
• Domino’s: Founded in 1960 in Michigan by Tom Monaghan.^[17] Its innovative “30-minute delivery guarantee” marketing spread pizza delivery culture around the world.
• Little Caesars: Founded in 1959, also in Michigan, by Mike Ilitch.^[17]

These chains turned pizza into a synonym for fast food through standardized recipes, rapid service, and aggressive marketing.

The Scale of the Modern Pizza Market

The scale of today’s pizza market is staggering. As of 2024, the global pizza market is valued at approximately $155 billion.^[18] More than 17 billion pizzas are consumed worldwide each year, and pizza is enjoyed in over 85 countries.^[18]

Over 245,000 pizza establishments operate worldwide, of which 38% are chains and 62% are independent pizzerias.^[18] Pizza has now transcended any particular culture or social class to become a food common to all of humanity.

Neapolitan Pizza’s UNESCO Heritage Recognition

On December 7, 2017, UNESCO inscribed the Art of Neapolitan Pizzaiuolo as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.^[19]

What was inscribed was not pizza itself, but the skills and culture of Naples’ pizza artisans — the pizzaiuolo. The entire process of preparing the dough, stretching it by hand, and baking it in a wood-fired oven was recognized as an intangible cultural heritage that humanity must preserve.^[19]

When the decision was announced, pizzaiuoli took to the streets of Naples to give out free pizza in celebration. It is said that as many as two million people signed the petition for UNESCO recognition.^[19]

Today, approximately 3,000 pizzaiuoli are active in Naples, making pizza using traditional methods passed down through generations.

Conclusion: From the Food of the Poor to the Food of All Humanity

The legend of Pizza Margherita’s birth was most likely a fabrication. The true founder of Lombardi’s is still debated. Yet the fact that these uncertain histories have done nothing to diminish pizza’s triumph reveals the very essence of its power. Pizza is not a single authoritative narrative — it is the sum of countless stories, shaped by different hands in thousands of ovens.

The flatbread that Samuel Morse called “the most repulsive food” on the streets of Naples went on to absorb ingredients from every continent, reinventing itself endlessly. What pizza ultimately proved is that becoming the world’s most universal food requires no noble origin. All it ever needed was one oven, one stretch of dough, and one generous rule: anything goes on top.