Page 49 - 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. 49
ze in Umbria (central Italy).
Market, prices and farms
between the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries
Manuel Vaquero Piñeiro
University of Perugia, Department of Political Sciences
Introduction
Among all the plants shipped in cargo holds from the New World (Plantes
et cultures 1992), there is no doubt that maize exerted a special influence
on both the old continent’s food habits and the crucial changes which oc-
curred in its agricultural landscape during the modern age (Sereni 1997).
In 1511, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, from Lombardy, wrote about it for the
first time in his book Decade de Orbe Novo and, in 1532, maize was al-
ready mentioned in Italian herbals (Doria 2002, 570-571; Gentilcore 2017).
As was usual with rare and exotic plants which originated from distant
lands and bore suggestive names evocative of the East (Heine 2017), maize
initially found its placement in the gardens, where it drew attention and
curiosity (Ambrosoli 1992). However, its transition from gardens to culti-
vated fields took place quickly (Rebourg 2002), since the use of this plant
from the Indies immediately took hold in livestock feeding (Cazzola 2014).
Moreover, maize waste produced useful fuel and mulch. At the end of the
sixteenth century, Agostino Gallo from Brescia devoted several pages of his
essay Le giornate di agricoltura to the subject of maize, thus demonstrating
that this cultivation was becoming familiar as well as widespread in many
areas of the Italian countryside.
Imported in Italy from Spain towards the end of the fifteenth centu-
ry, maize was already being cultivated in the Venetian mainland during the
first half of the sixteenth century (Finzi 2009). During the following dec-
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-6963-09-1.47-67 47
Market, prices and farms
between the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries
Manuel Vaquero Piñeiro
University of Perugia, Department of Political Sciences
Introduction
Among all the plants shipped in cargo holds from the New World (Plantes
et cultures 1992), there is no doubt that maize exerted a special influence
on both the old continent’s food habits and the crucial changes which oc-
curred in its agricultural landscape during the modern age (Sereni 1997).
In 1511, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, from Lombardy, wrote about it for the
first time in his book Decade de Orbe Novo and, in 1532, maize was al-
ready mentioned in Italian herbals (Doria 2002, 570-571; Gentilcore 2017).
As was usual with rare and exotic plants which originated from distant
lands and bore suggestive names evocative of the East (Heine 2017), maize
initially found its placement in the gardens, where it drew attention and
curiosity (Ambrosoli 1992). However, its transition from gardens to culti-
vated fields took place quickly (Rebourg 2002), since the use of this plant
from the Indies immediately took hold in livestock feeding (Cazzola 2014).
Moreover, maize waste produced useful fuel and mulch. At the end of the
sixteenth century, Agostino Gallo from Brescia devoted several pages of his
essay Le giornate di agricoltura to the subject of maize, thus demonstrating
that this cultivation was becoming familiar as well as widespread in many
areas of the Italian countryside.
Imported in Italy from Spain towards the end of the fifteenth centu-
ry, maize was already being cultivated in the Venetian mainland during the
first half of the sixteenth century (Finzi 2009). During the following dec-
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-6963-09-1.47-67 47
