The Trajan food tabula is a bronze inscription found near Veleia, in the Piacenza municipality of Lugagnano, and preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Parma. It is the largest inscription from the Roman era, measuring 1.38 m in height by 2.86 in width. Its discovery took place in 1747, during the work of arranging a field, dismembered and sold for fusion by the archpriest of Mucinasso (PC), the pieces were recovered, reassembled and, on behalf of Pietro De Lama, restored in 1817 by Pietro Amoretti, the discovery started the excavations which in 1760 brought to light the ruins of Veleia. A copy is present in the Antiquarium of Veleia. The institution of the Alimenta, wanted by the emperor Trajan and remembered by a relief found in the Forum of Rome and exhibited in the Roman Curia, consisted of a mortgage loan granted to landowners -obligatio praedorium- whose interest was donated to the maintenance of poor children, with the twofold aim of increasing agricultural activities and supporting poor families to counteract the depopulation of the countryside.