The origin of the word pizza is uncertain. The term "pizza" first appeared "in a Latin text from the southern Italian town of Gaeta in 997 AD, which states that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop of Gaeta duodecim pizze ("twelve pizzas") every Christmas Day, and another twelve every Easter Sunday".
The ancient Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs and cheese. The Romans developed placenta cake, a sheet of dough topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves.
Modern pizza evolved from similar flatbread dishes in Naples, Italy in the 18th or early 19th century. Prior to that time, flatbread was often topped with ingredients such as garlic, salt, lard, cheese, and basil. It is uncertain when tomatoes were first added and there are many conflicting claims.
A popular contemporary legend holds that the archetypal pizza, Pizza Margherita, was invented in 1889, when the Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned the Neapolitan pizzaiolo (pizza maker) Raffaele Esposito to create a pizza in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita. Of the three different pizzas he created, the Queen strongly preferred a pie swathed in the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella). Supposedly, this kind of pizza was then named after the Queen as "Pizza Margherita", although recent research casts doubt on this legend.
For those who live outside of Japan pizza costs about $35-$40 for one large pizza. This website talks about Japanese pizza company monopoly and that it seems pizza companies are price fixing the cost of pizza in Japan.
