Page 109 - 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. 109
innovations in agr icultur e and population growth in fr iuli ...
Map 5. Origin of imported maize (eighteenth c.)
1970, 258-9). Valenčič meant that maize appeared in Styria later than in the
West, but we have seen that this is not necessarily confirmed by the existing
evidence; rather the opposite seems to be true or, at most, a parallel process
might be hypothesized.
Going back to the trajectories, it is probably more precise to speak
of a south-western and a south-eastern direction of maize diffusion into
the Slovenian lands, rather than of an “East” and “West” one. Moreover, I
would propose a reading that is a little more complex than the “Venetian”
and “Hungarian” influence. One gateway was from the southwest and it
comprised mainland routes from Venetian Friuli and sea routes through
the Adriatic ports of Trieste and Rijeka. Moreover, such maize did not
come by boat only from the Venetian mainland territories, but most like-
ly from the Papal States as well, as Valenčič seems to suggest by using the
term “Italy”. In fact, it is known from Gestrin’s studies that at least since the
Late Middle Ages and in the early modern period the Austrian Habsburg
ports of Trieste and Rijeka had intense maritime trade connections with
the western Adriatic coast (the Marche region in particular), not least to
escape the Venetian navigation monopoly (Gestrin 1975; 1991, 113, 156-158).
In addition to that, the maize entering by sea routes might as well have
107
Map 5. Origin of imported maize (eighteenth c.)
1970, 258-9). Valenčič meant that maize appeared in Styria later than in the
West, but we have seen that this is not necessarily confirmed by the existing
evidence; rather the opposite seems to be true or, at most, a parallel process
might be hypothesized.
Going back to the trajectories, it is probably more precise to speak
of a south-western and a south-eastern direction of maize diffusion into
the Slovenian lands, rather than of an “East” and “West” one. Moreover, I
would propose a reading that is a little more complex than the “Venetian”
and “Hungarian” influence. One gateway was from the southwest and it
comprised mainland routes from Venetian Friuli and sea routes through
the Adriatic ports of Trieste and Rijeka. Moreover, such maize did not
come by boat only from the Venetian mainland territories, but most like-
ly from the Papal States as well, as Valenčič seems to suggest by using the
term “Italy”. In fact, it is known from Gestrin’s studies that at least since the
Late Middle Ages and in the early modern period the Austrian Habsburg
ports of Trieste and Rijeka had intense maritime trade connections with
the western Adriatic coast (the Marche region in particular), not least to
escape the Venetian navigation monopoly (Gestrin 1975; 1991, 113, 156-158).
In addition to that, the maize entering by sea routes might as well have
107
