Page 15 - 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. 15
maize in the north-eastern mediterranean: new insights and researches
devoted to wheat (Moioli 1983, 630-631). The same happened in the areas
shaped by the predominance of sharecropping, such as central Italy, where
the introduction of maize was similarly slowed down. In fact, within the
economy of the sharecropping podere, despite the splitting of the yield be-
tween the landowner and peasants, the former was in a stronger position
and was mainly interested in wheat, wine and oil production (Mineccia
1983).
In northern Italy the diffusion of maize increased after the plague of
1630-1631, owing to the growing contractual power of peasants who sur-
vived the epidemic and the awareness of landowners that maize, due to its
high productivity and the fact that its growth did not overlap with that of
wheat, could become pivotal for peasants’ alimentation without compro-
mising wheat production. Moreover, being more productive than the other
crops eaten by peasants such as millet or buckwheat (notwithstanding it re-
quired hard work) and being suitable for sowing together with other crops,
such as vines or pumpkins, it soon found favour with both the landowners
and the peasants.
Thus, starting with the eighteenth century, wherever the soil and
weather conditions and the agricultural framework allowed it, maize diffu-
sion was becoming unstoppable. In the case of the possessions of Bonate di
sopra, Comun Nuovo e Nova owned by the Consorzio della Misericordia
Maggiore in the plain of Bergamasco where the production of maize, which
had still been marginal in the decade 1650-1660, overtook that of wheat in
the decade 1711-1720, mostly thanks to the pressure and requests of peasants
(Moioli 1983, 688-707).
In some territories, however, the features of local agriculture left no
room for a remarkable diffusion of maize. That is the case in most of south-
ern Italy where, on the one hand, wheat cultivation for export predominat-
ed, as in the case of Sicily, and where, on the other hand, the centrality of
transhumant breeding, as in Tavoliere of Apulia, limited grain cultivation
(Russo 2016). On this plain about 110,000 hectares of land were used by the
Dogana, the institution that regulated sheep transhumance, eight months
a year, after which time the land was given to the landowners for their own
use during the summer (Mercurio 1990, 12). At the end of the warmest sea-
son, in fact, millions of sheep left Abruzzo and the mountains of Molise
and headed for the Apulian Plain, as did the flocks of central Italy, but they
headed for the Tuscan Maremma, where Dogana dei Paschi operated, and
to the Pontine Marshes south of Rome (Ciuffetti 2019, 220-225).
13
devoted to wheat (Moioli 1983, 630-631). The same happened in the areas
shaped by the predominance of sharecropping, such as central Italy, where
the introduction of maize was similarly slowed down. In fact, within the
economy of the sharecropping podere, despite the splitting of the yield be-
tween the landowner and peasants, the former was in a stronger position
and was mainly interested in wheat, wine and oil production (Mineccia
1983).
In northern Italy the diffusion of maize increased after the plague of
1630-1631, owing to the growing contractual power of peasants who sur-
vived the epidemic and the awareness of landowners that maize, due to its
high productivity and the fact that its growth did not overlap with that of
wheat, could become pivotal for peasants’ alimentation without compro-
mising wheat production. Moreover, being more productive than the other
crops eaten by peasants such as millet or buckwheat (notwithstanding it re-
quired hard work) and being suitable for sowing together with other crops,
such as vines or pumpkins, it soon found favour with both the landowners
and the peasants.
Thus, starting with the eighteenth century, wherever the soil and
weather conditions and the agricultural framework allowed it, maize diffu-
sion was becoming unstoppable. In the case of the possessions of Bonate di
sopra, Comun Nuovo e Nova owned by the Consorzio della Misericordia
Maggiore in the plain of Bergamasco where the production of maize, which
had still been marginal in the decade 1650-1660, overtook that of wheat in
the decade 1711-1720, mostly thanks to the pressure and requests of peasants
(Moioli 1983, 688-707).
In some territories, however, the features of local agriculture left no
room for a remarkable diffusion of maize. That is the case in most of south-
ern Italy where, on the one hand, wheat cultivation for export predominat-
ed, as in the case of Sicily, and where, on the other hand, the centrality of
transhumant breeding, as in Tavoliere of Apulia, limited grain cultivation
(Russo 2016). On this plain about 110,000 hectares of land were used by the
Dogana, the institution that regulated sheep transhumance, eight months
a year, after which time the land was given to the landowners for their own
use during the summer (Mercurio 1990, 12). At the end of the warmest sea-
son, in fact, millions of sheep left Abruzzo and the mountains of Molise
and headed for the Apulian Plain, as did the flocks of central Italy, but they
headed for the Tuscan Maremma, where Dogana dei Paschi operated, and
to the Pontine Marshes south of Rome (Ciuffetti 2019, 220-225).
13
