Page 102 - Mocarelli, Luca, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2020. Maize to the People! Cultivation, Consumption and Trade in the North-Eastern Mediterranean (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century). Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 102
maize to the people!
Gorenjska, meaning that its buyers were to be found “in the less fertile are-
as” of Carniola (Valenčič states also that maize was not yet cultivated in the
region). These imports seem to have quickly achieved an important role in
granting the subsistence of the rural population especially in south-west-
ern Slovenia in years of scarcity. In fact, while the provincial estates of
Carniola in 1727 asked the ruler to prohibit maize imports, seeking protec-
tion for landlords’ grain from such a concurrence, the ruler’s representative
in the duchy (Vizedom) immediately commented that “had maize not have
arrived from the Papal States to Rijeka and Trieste, there would have been
famine in the Classical Karst and Pivka” (Notranjska region). The provin-
cial estates insisted on an import ban and tried to justify such a request,
among other things, with the fact that “maize was partly imported from
Turkish lands”. Nevertheless, imports continued, as was the case in the bad
harvest year of 1740, when grain prices rose high in Carniola and “a large
amount of maize was bought from abroad” (Valenčič 1977, 31-33, 48-9, 125).
In the Slovenian literature cited so far, mentions of maize imports in
the second half of the eighteenth century are missing. Some information
about maize trade in the Trieste seaport was published, although the data
made available are not completely satisfactory, not least because the au-
thors of such works posed different research questions than the ones we
have here. The overall picture that we get from them is that maize trade can
be detected in the form of import, export and transit, both by sea and land.
In 1760, a very scarce amount of maize was “imported” through Trieste
from Dalmatia, its destination being Austria (the Vienna area): maize was
among the very last goods according to value (153rd out of 156), a trifling
amount compared to the total (12 florins : 5.3 million Fl., transit excluded,
Erceg 1970, 29, 69). In any case, no import to the Slovenian lands was reg-
istered in that year, nor data on maize transit trade in Trieste (Erceg 1970,
151). Five years later, we get a completely different picture of maritime tran-
sit trade (from abroad to abroad) through Trieste. In 1765, over one million
pounds (1,060,400 Pfund) of maize were registered arriving from “Italy”
with the destinations “Genoa, Lisbon, Messina, Livorno, and Dalmatia”,
meaning the considerable amount of nearly 60,000 tons, which represented
27% of the total weight and 7% of the total value of transited goods.5
In the next year, 67,890.5 stara of wheat, 13,599 of maize, 1,582 of barley,
780 of rye, and 251 of oats were “exported” by sea through Trieste (January-
October 1766). The destinations of these cereals were the nearby Venetian
5 Calculations on data in Erceg 1970, 181.
100
Gorenjska, meaning that its buyers were to be found “in the less fertile are-
as” of Carniola (Valenčič states also that maize was not yet cultivated in the
region). These imports seem to have quickly achieved an important role in
granting the subsistence of the rural population especially in south-west-
ern Slovenia in years of scarcity. In fact, while the provincial estates of
Carniola in 1727 asked the ruler to prohibit maize imports, seeking protec-
tion for landlords’ grain from such a concurrence, the ruler’s representative
in the duchy (Vizedom) immediately commented that “had maize not have
arrived from the Papal States to Rijeka and Trieste, there would have been
famine in the Classical Karst and Pivka” (Notranjska region). The provin-
cial estates insisted on an import ban and tried to justify such a request,
among other things, with the fact that “maize was partly imported from
Turkish lands”. Nevertheless, imports continued, as was the case in the bad
harvest year of 1740, when grain prices rose high in Carniola and “a large
amount of maize was bought from abroad” (Valenčič 1977, 31-33, 48-9, 125).
In the Slovenian literature cited so far, mentions of maize imports in
the second half of the eighteenth century are missing. Some information
about maize trade in the Trieste seaport was published, although the data
made available are not completely satisfactory, not least because the au-
thors of such works posed different research questions than the ones we
have here. The overall picture that we get from them is that maize trade can
be detected in the form of import, export and transit, both by sea and land.
In 1760, a very scarce amount of maize was “imported” through Trieste
from Dalmatia, its destination being Austria (the Vienna area): maize was
among the very last goods according to value (153rd out of 156), a trifling
amount compared to the total (12 florins : 5.3 million Fl., transit excluded,
Erceg 1970, 29, 69). In any case, no import to the Slovenian lands was reg-
istered in that year, nor data on maize transit trade in Trieste (Erceg 1970,
151). Five years later, we get a completely different picture of maritime tran-
sit trade (from abroad to abroad) through Trieste. In 1765, over one million
pounds (1,060,400 Pfund) of maize were registered arriving from “Italy”
with the destinations “Genoa, Lisbon, Messina, Livorno, and Dalmatia”,
meaning the considerable amount of nearly 60,000 tons, which represented
27% of the total weight and 7% of the total value of transited goods.5
In the next year, 67,890.5 stara of wheat, 13,599 of maize, 1,582 of barley,
780 of rye, and 251 of oats were “exported” by sea through Trieste (January-
October 1766). The destinations of these cereals were the nearby Venetian
5 Calculations on data in Erceg 1970, 181.
100
