Today in Italy there are more than 200 types of bread, each tied to regional culinary traditions—just as in ancient Rome, there were many different kinds.
The most famous was the panis quadratus: a round loaf with cross-shaped cuts that divided it into eight or six portions. Alongside the round shape, elongated forms also existed, as noted by Plautus, while Martial tells us that sometimes bread was shaped like male or female genitalia.
Bread baked in an oven was called panis furnaceus, but there were alternative cooking methods, such as using a terracotta bell (clibanus), from which panis artopticus or panis clibanicus was made.
When loaves were cooked under the ashes, the result was panis subcinerinus or fucacius. There were also regional specialties like the famous bread of Alexandria, baked on spits. The panis cibarius, secundarius, and plebeius were made from flour with different levels of refinement. The panis siligineus was made from siligo, a fine flour used to bake bread mostly consumed by the wealthy. The panis hostrearius was served with oysters.
Among the poor in the countryside, pinsa was common—a thin, elongated flatbread made with humble flours like barley, oats, and millet, flavored with herbs and salt, and cooked on hot stones. The panis rusticus was entirely wholemeal bread, while panis parthicus or acquaticus was soft and spongy—ideal for soaking up liquids.
Often, doughs were enriched with special ingredients: panis picenus, for instance, was kneaded with raisin juice and baked in a clay pot that was broken open before serving. Panis adipatus was a flatbread enriched with lard or bacon pieces, and panis artolaganus was a rich dough containing milk, wine, honey, oil, pepper, and candied fruit. Equally flavorful was the panis strepticius, an early version of pizza made with flour, water, oil, lard, and pepper.
Ortolaganus was a festive bread seasoned with vegetables, candied fruits, honey, oil, and wine. Bread used in rituals and offerings had to be unleavened—a restriction still present in modern religious rites, such as the Jewish Passover matzah and the Christian Eucharistic host.
There was also bread not meant for human consumption, such as panis furfureus or sordidus, made from bran and prepared especially for dogs. Soldiers or sailors ate panis militaris castrensis, a kind of hardtack that kept for long periods, along with panis buccellatus and panis nauticus, consumed by seafarers.
In Herculaneum, loaves have been found in round shapes with six and eight segments, some stamped—usually on the top of one segment—with letters, names, or distinctive marks, probably to identify the loaf baked in a public oven and distinguish it from others. This practice still survives in some wood-fired public bakeries in southern Italy. Special flatbreads resembling biscuits have also been found, often stamped with vegetal motifs and a central hole.