Page 41 - 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. 41
maize diffusion in the republic of venice: the case of the province of vicenza
of the Province of Vicenza close to the mountains. The first examples of the
presence of the new cereal are dated as early as 1570; by the 1580s and 90s
maize seems to have been included in the market mechanisms – as proved
by the correlation of prices with other cereals and the prices of wheat in
various markets – in the tithes, and in the agrarian contracts. It spread in
an area with a high demographic pressure that affected the relationship be-
tween population and food resources, especially taking into account the
morphology of the area that was less suitable for the cultivation of wheat.
As it happened in other areas, in Veneto and specifically in the Province of
Vicenza too, maize spread where there was already a relevant consumption
of minor cereals (Gasparini 2002, 13; Pezzolo 2011, 101; Fassina 1982, 52-53,
55), which it substituted gradually as the main foodstuff in peasant diet –
with the resulting problems of pellagra and malnourishment7. However, it
is difficult to link the diffusion of maize with the structure of the agricul-
tural sector: indeed, on the one hand, according to Cazzola the new cere-
al spread firstly where there were large estates farmed with cattlemen and
schiavenza contracts (work in exchange for money and in-kind payments),
and later in the areas with the prevalence of sharecropping (Cazzola 1991,
118-120; 2014, 318; Finzi 2009, 66-72). However, this does not explain why
in the Province of Bergamo for example, “where sharecropping lasted for
a long time, it supported […] a wider expansion of maize”, and there the
new cereal was well received quite early, roughly since the second decade of
the seventeenth century (Coppola 1979, 17-18, 107-109). This is maybe due to
the fact, as Cazzola himself underlines, that not all the sharecropping rela-
tionships were the same; what was valid for the provinces of Bologna and
Ferrara and their “rich” sharecroppers, could not apply to the poorer fam-
ilies of sharecroppers that had a lower bargaining power with the land-
owners. Indeed, probably the definition of the contracts, the choices of the
landowners or of the tenants on what should be sown and on the subdivi-
sion of production affected the diffusion of maize more than the sharecrop-
ping structure itself. There is no specific research on the agrarian struc-
ture of the Province of Vicenza, therefore it is not possible to confirm or
reject these interpretations; however, it seems that in the area of the prov-
ince close to the mountains, which was characterized by strong manufac-
turing professions, the sharecropping of ample estates was absent; but we
do not know if there was a prevalence of sharecropping of small properties,
7 Coppola 1979, 114-134; Doria 2002, 572-573, Gasparini 2002, 103-110; Finzi 2009, 81-
134; Cazzola 1991, 121-122; 2015, 35.
39
of the Province of Vicenza close to the mountains. The first examples of the
presence of the new cereal are dated as early as 1570; by the 1580s and 90s
maize seems to have been included in the market mechanisms – as proved
by the correlation of prices with other cereals and the prices of wheat in
various markets – in the tithes, and in the agrarian contracts. It spread in
an area with a high demographic pressure that affected the relationship be-
tween population and food resources, especially taking into account the
morphology of the area that was less suitable for the cultivation of wheat.
As it happened in other areas, in Veneto and specifically in the Province of
Vicenza too, maize spread where there was already a relevant consumption
of minor cereals (Gasparini 2002, 13; Pezzolo 2011, 101; Fassina 1982, 52-53,
55), which it substituted gradually as the main foodstuff in peasant diet –
with the resulting problems of pellagra and malnourishment7. However, it
is difficult to link the diffusion of maize with the structure of the agricul-
tural sector: indeed, on the one hand, according to Cazzola the new cere-
al spread firstly where there were large estates farmed with cattlemen and
schiavenza contracts (work in exchange for money and in-kind payments),
and later in the areas with the prevalence of sharecropping (Cazzola 1991,
118-120; 2014, 318; Finzi 2009, 66-72). However, this does not explain why
in the Province of Bergamo for example, “where sharecropping lasted for
a long time, it supported […] a wider expansion of maize”, and there the
new cereal was well received quite early, roughly since the second decade of
the seventeenth century (Coppola 1979, 17-18, 107-109). This is maybe due to
the fact, as Cazzola himself underlines, that not all the sharecropping rela-
tionships were the same; what was valid for the provinces of Bologna and
Ferrara and their “rich” sharecroppers, could not apply to the poorer fam-
ilies of sharecroppers that had a lower bargaining power with the land-
owners. Indeed, probably the definition of the contracts, the choices of the
landowners or of the tenants on what should be sown and on the subdivi-
sion of production affected the diffusion of maize more than the sharecrop-
ping structure itself. There is no specific research on the agrarian struc-
ture of the Province of Vicenza, therefore it is not possible to confirm or
reject these interpretations; however, it seems that in the area of the prov-
ince close to the mountains, which was characterized by strong manufac-
turing professions, the sharecropping of ample estates was absent; but we
do not know if there was a prevalence of sharecropping of small properties,
7 Coppola 1979, 114-134; Doria 2002, 572-573, Gasparini 2002, 103-110; Finzi 2009, 81-
134; Cazzola 1991, 121-122; 2015, 35.
39
