[Sca-cooks] Re: Cacciocavallo with pasta?

[Christiane]

Amra says:
If you can't find Cacciocavallo itself, in my opinion a good aged NON-smoked 
provolone -- particularly one that has been "hung" so it looks physically a 
bit like a birdhouse gourd -- should make a reasonable substitute both for 
the palate and for the texture(s).  No, it will not be the same, but I'm 
talking reasonable facsimile here.
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Thank you! We have several Whole Foods around here, but I just slapped myself in the head recently; I'm half an hour away from the Italian Market section of Philadelphia, and I know there is an enormous cheese shop there. Duh!!!!!! I'm an idiot!

I had made a reference in my original inquiry to a letter to Isabella d'Este Gonzaga; the letter was actually to Lucrezia Gonzaga, a minor Mantuan princess also known as a student of Pico della Mirandola. 

In the north of Italy, where the Lombard ravioli recipe is from, was it more common in period to use soft wheat for pasta-making instead of hard wheat? I've found a very few modern references that say soft wheat is common today in homemade pasta-making in the north of Italy, but those are modern references.  

Gianotta