Bartolomeo Scappi the great Italian renaissance chef published several recipes for what he called "pizza" in his famous cookbook "Opera dell'arte del cucinare" (published in 1570). However, these are quite different to modern pizza and are generally sweet dishes made with flaky pastry. He does include a recipe for a Neapolitan Pizza which consists of a pastry base topped with almonds, dried fruits and flavoured with rosewater.
The innovation which gave us the particular flat bread we call “pizza” was the use of tomato as a topping. For some time after the tomato was brought to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century, it was believed by many Europeans to be poisonous (as are some other fruits of the nightshade family). However, by the late 18th century it was common for the poor of the area around Naples to add tomato to their yeast-based flat bread, and so the pizza was born. The dish gained in popularity, and soon Pizza became a tourist attraction as visitors to Naples ventured into the poorer areas of the city in order to try the local specialty. Until about 1830, pizza was sold from open-air stands and street vendors out of pizza bakeries. Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples is widely regarded as the world's first pizzeria. They started producing pizzas for peddlers in 1738 but expanded to a pizza restaurant with chairs and tables in 1830, and still serve pizza from the same premises today. A description of pizza in Naples around 1830 is given by the French writer and food expert Alexandre Dumas, père in his work "Le Corricolo", Chapter VIII. He writes that pizza was the only food of the humble people in Naples during winter, and that "in Naples pizza is flavored with oil, lard, tallow, cheese, tomato, or anchovies". Pizza first made its appearance in the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. This was certainly the case in cities with large Italian populations, such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia where pizza was first sold on the streets of Italian neighborhoods. In late 19th century Chicago for example, pizza was introduced by a peddler who walked up and down Taylor Street with a metal washtub of pizzas on his head, crying his wares at two cents a chew. This was the traditional way pizza used to be sold in Naples, in copper cylindrical drums with false bottoms that were packed with charcoal from the oven to keep the pizzas hot. It wasn't long until small cafes and groceries began offering pizzas to their Italian-American communities. The first "official" pizzeria in America is disputable, but it is generally believed to have been founded by Gennaro Lombardi in Little Italy, Manhattan. Gennaro Lombardi opened a grocery store in 1897 which later was established as the first pizzeria in America in 1905 with New York's issuance of the mercantile license. An employee of his, Antonio Totonno Pero, began making pizza for the store to sell that same year. The price for an entire pizza was five cents, but since many people couldn't afford the cost of a whole pie, they could instead say how much they could pay and they were given a slice corresponding to the amount offered. 
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