Page 50 - 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. 50
maize to the people!
ades, the maize-planted area in the Italian Peninsula grew so much that it
included Tuscany and Terra di Lavoro, before reaching its final state in the
early seventeenth century. In 1620, maize made its appearance in the irrigat-
ed lands of Bergamasco, therefore taking hold in the Ferrara area. Around
the 1660s, maize spread in Lombardy where, in 1649, the Municipality of
Milan had ordered the city to be supplied with this new cereal (Coppola
1979; Cova 1992). Maize crops continued to propagate during the second
half of the seventeenth century by reaching Treviso, Vicenza and Padua.
Over this same period, it made its appearance, though episodic, in Umbria
and Marche. In the eighteenth century, it spread further to Piedmont and
to the Bologna area. The blé de Turquie even arrived in the southern are-
as (Cuocco 2008) where, due to the climate, wheat was the most common
crop. However, during the modern age, a dualism in cereal cultivation took
shape which immediately affected the landscape: on the one hand, there
was the south with its wheat fields, which were an emblem of dry agricul-
ture, while, on the other hand, there were the northern valleys, where the
coexistence of maize and wheat produced a much more variegated agri-
cultural space, far richer in feeding options, both for people and livestock.
At the same time, the spreading of maize crops improved peasants’ as well
as merchants’ commercial strategies which, starting from the mid-seven-
teenth century, had a greater choice of products to be placed on the market,
according to trends in harvests and prices (Levi 1991).
Public authorities and large landowners, merchants and small street
vendors started to impose the cultivation of maize on the peasants, though
facing much resistance due to the fact that, in several lands, its planting re-
sulted in a reduction in other cereal crops, such as rye and millet, which
had been for centuries essential parts of diets and cultivation practices.
Anyway, in the light of the immediate advantages that it offered, maize
took hold as a minor grain, soon becoming the typical food of both rural
and urban lower classes (Mocarelli 2015). Although representing a make-
shift food, compared with the finer wheat, maize provided peasants and
the poor urban class with a useful solution to satisfy hunger and remove
the threat of it. Moreover, other reasons favoured the peasants’ overcom-
ing their initial resistance and contribute to explaining the spreading of
maize in the European, and consequently Italian, countryside. First of all,
as mentioned above, maize represented a fairly reliable and steady food
not only for people, but also for the livestock, which was soon fed with it.
Even though specific research concerning the connections between the in-
48
ades, the maize-planted area in the Italian Peninsula grew so much that it
included Tuscany and Terra di Lavoro, before reaching its final state in the
early seventeenth century. In 1620, maize made its appearance in the irrigat-
ed lands of Bergamasco, therefore taking hold in the Ferrara area. Around
the 1660s, maize spread in Lombardy where, in 1649, the Municipality of
Milan had ordered the city to be supplied with this new cereal (Coppola
1979; Cova 1992). Maize crops continued to propagate during the second
half of the seventeenth century by reaching Treviso, Vicenza and Padua.
Over this same period, it made its appearance, though episodic, in Umbria
and Marche. In the eighteenth century, it spread further to Piedmont and
to the Bologna area. The blé de Turquie even arrived in the southern are-
as (Cuocco 2008) where, due to the climate, wheat was the most common
crop. However, during the modern age, a dualism in cereal cultivation took
shape which immediately affected the landscape: on the one hand, there
was the south with its wheat fields, which were an emblem of dry agricul-
ture, while, on the other hand, there were the northern valleys, where the
coexistence of maize and wheat produced a much more variegated agri-
cultural space, far richer in feeding options, both for people and livestock.
At the same time, the spreading of maize crops improved peasants’ as well
as merchants’ commercial strategies which, starting from the mid-seven-
teenth century, had a greater choice of products to be placed on the market,
according to trends in harvests and prices (Levi 1991).
Public authorities and large landowners, merchants and small street
vendors started to impose the cultivation of maize on the peasants, though
facing much resistance due to the fact that, in several lands, its planting re-
sulted in a reduction in other cereal crops, such as rye and millet, which
had been for centuries essential parts of diets and cultivation practices.
Anyway, in the light of the immediate advantages that it offered, maize
took hold as a minor grain, soon becoming the typical food of both rural
and urban lower classes (Mocarelli 2015). Although representing a make-
shift food, compared with the finer wheat, maize provided peasants and
the poor urban class with a useful solution to satisfy hunger and remove
the threat of it. Moreover, other reasons favoured the peasants’ overcom-
ing their initial resistance and contribute to explaining the spreading of
maize in the European, and consequently Italian, countryside. First of all,
as mentioned above, maize represented a fairly reliable and steady food
not only for people, but also for the livestock, which was soon fed with it.
Even though specific research concerning the connections between the in-
48
