Page 27 - 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. 27
ze diffusion in the Republic of Venice:
the case of the Province of Vicenza
(sixteenth-eighteenth century)
Giulio Ongaro
University of Milan Bicocca, Department of Economics, Management and Statistics
The paper has a threefold aim: on the one hand, it wants to contribute to
the dating of the first examples of the diffusion of maize in the Republic
of Venice, specifically in the Province of Vicenza. In other words, it aims
to determine when this cereal appeared for the first time in that area. On
the other hand, the chronology and geography of its first appearance can
provide some useful hints regarding why and where maize started to be
cultivated. Finally, the paper will propose a first and provisional analy-
sis of how this happened. Indeed, as many scholars who dealt with this
topic have underlined, maize was not extensively cultivated at the begin-
ning, and its production was not a market-oriented one; this is also true of
those areas (such as the Veneto and Friuli regions) where most of the ru-
ral population lived on this cereal until the late twelfth century. Moreover,
it is still not clear if the use of the so-called sorgo turco for feeding ani-
mals preceded its introduction in peasants’ gardens in order to integrate
the diet of the day labourers and of the small tenants and landowners. The
analysis of certain archival sources related to the Province of Vicenza has
helped in proposing a hypothesis about the itinerary that maize followed
since the last thirty years of the sixteenth century in the area of the prov-
ince close to the mountains: from the presence of small amounts among
the provisions of cereals in households, to its – quite precocious – inclu-
sion in the market mechanisms.
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-6963-09-1.25-45 25
the case of the Province of Vicenza
(sixteenth-eighteenth century)
Giulio Ongaro
University of Milan Bicocca, Department of Economics, Management and Statistics
The paper has a threefold aim: on the one hand, it wants to contribute to
the dating of the first examples of the diffusion of maize in the Republic
of Venice, specifically in the Province of Vicenza. In other words, it aims
to determine when this cereal appeared for the first time in that area. On
the other hand, the chronology and geography of its first appearance can
provide some useful hints regarding why and where maize started to be
cultivated. Finally, the paper will propose a first and provisional analy-
sis of how this happened. Indeed, as many scholars who dealt with this
topic have underlined, maize was not extensively cultivated at the begin-
ning, and its production was not a market-oriented one; this is also true of
those areas (such as the Veneto and Friuli regions) where most of the ru-
ral population lived on this cereal until the late twelfth century. Moreover,
it is still not clear if the use of the so-called sorgo turco for feeding ani-
mals preceded its introduction in peasants’ gardens in order to integrate
the diet of the day labourers and of the small tenants and landowners. The
analysis of certain archival sources related to the Province of Vicenza has
helped in proposing a hypothesis about the itinerary that maize followed
since the last thirty years of the sixteenth century in the area of the prov-
ince close to the mountains: from the presence of small amounts among
the provisions of cereals in households, to its – quite precocious – inclu-
sion in the market mechanisms.
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-6963-09-1.25-45 25
