Page 28 - 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. 28
maize to the people!
Maize in the Republic of Venice
and in the Province of Vicenza: a state of the art
Since Luigi Messedaglia’s studies, who dedicated many pages to maize dif-
fusion from the Americas to Europe, and particularly in the Republic of
Venice (Messedaglia 1924; 1927; 2008), many researches have dealt with the
chronology and characteristics of the gradual ‘conquest’ of the country-
side by this cereal. Danilo Gasparini (2000; 2002; 2015) in particular ana-
lysed maize cultivation in the Venetian area. Sometimes these researches
focused, with “rustic erudition” (Gasparini 2002, 12), on the long-standing
problem of when and where maize appeared for the first time; however, re-
search into the chronology of its diffusion is not simply a question of who
was first. In fact, understanding when and where this happened is crucial
in order to establish the why and how.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, maize reached Spain from
the Americas, where it was extensively used, even if in a quite different way
compared to its milling and processing into polenta that characterized the
countryside of northern Italy. Then it spread with “rapid advancements and
prolonged interruptions” (Cazzola 2014, 311) in the Mediterranean area,
from the Iberian Peninsula to the Ottoman Empire. Already from the 1620s
onward, it was cultivated in Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and Portugal; af-
terwards, it rapidly crossed the Pyrenees and spread throughout the south-
ern part of France, where its use in human diet struggled to take hold1. The
new cereal reached the Italian Peninsula in the mid-sixteenth century; the
Republic of Venice was quite probably one of the first areas where maize
was accepted not only as an exotic crop, perhaps used as a model for mar-
ble friezes, but also for intensive cultivation. This happened in the Province
of Rovigo already in the mid-sixteenth century and in the territory of Este
(in the Province of Padua) in the 1580s2. In conjunction with the famine of
the 1590s (Alfani 2010, 232-233; 2011; Clark 1985), maize spread rapidly in the
provinces of Treviso and Verona and in the Papal Legations south of the
Po River, reaching in the seventeenth century the Province of Belluno, the
1 Cazzola 2014, 311-315; 1991, 110-112; 2002, 236; 2015, 35-38; Slicher Van Bath 1972,
368; Finzi 2009, 17-18, 28; Levi 1991, 156; Montanari 1993, 128.
2 Fassina 1982, 34-36; Cazzola 1991, 112-113; 2014, 315-316; 2015, 38-39; Finzi 2009, 19;
Doria 2002, 571; Vecchiato 1979, 71-72; Mocarelli and Vaquero Piñeiro 2018, 23.
26
Maize in the Republic of Venice
and in the Province of Vicenza: a state of the art
Since Luigi Messedaglia’s studies, who dedicated many pages to maize dif-
fusion from the Americas to Europe, and particularly in the Republic of
Venice (Messedaglia 1924; 1927; 2008), many researches have dealt with the
chronology and characteristics of the gradual ‘conquest’ of the country-
side by this cereal. Danilo Gasparini (2000; 2002; 2015) in particular ana-
lysed maize cultivation in the Venetian area. Sometimes these researches
focused, with “rustic erudition” (Gasparini 2002, 12), on the long-standing
problem of when and where maize appeared for the first time; however, re-
search into the chronology of its diffusion is not simply a question of who
was first. In fact, understanding when and where this happened is crucial
in order to establish the why and how.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, maize reached Spain from
the Americas, where it was extensively used, even if in a quite different way
compared to its milling and processing into polenta that characterized the
countryside of northern Italy. Then it spread with “rapid advancements and
prolonged interruptions” (Cazzola 2014, 311) in the Mediterranean area,
from the Iberian Peninsula to the Ottoman Empire. Already from the 1620s
onward, it was cultivated in Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and Portugal; af-
terwards, it rapidly crossed the Pyrenees and spread throughout the south-
ern part of France, where its use in human diet struggled to take hold1. The
new cereal reached the Italian Peninsula in the mid-sixteenth century; the
Republic of Venice was quite probably one of the first areas where maize
was accepted not only as an exotic crop, perhaps used as a model for mar-
ble friezes, but also for intensive cultivation. This happened in the Province
of Rovigo already in the mid-sixteenth century and in the territory of Este
(in the Province of Padua) in the 1580s2. In conjunction with the famine of
the 1590s (Alfani 2010, 232-233; 2011; Clark 1985), maize spread rapidly in the
provinces of Treviso and Verona and in the Papal Legations south of the
Po River, reaching in the seventeenth century the Province of Belluno, the
1 Cazzola 2014, 311-315; 1991, 110-112; 2002, 236; 2015, 35-38; Slicher Van Bath 1972,
368; Finzi 2009, 17-18, 28; Levi 1991, 156; Montanari 1993, 128.
2 Fassina 1982, 34-36; Cazzola 1991, 112-113; 2014, 315-316; 2015, 38-39; Finzi 2009, 19;
Doria 2002, 571; Vecchiato 1979, 71-72; Mocarelli and Vaquero Piñeiro 2018, 23.
26
