Page 52 - 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. 52
maize to the people!
draw a comparison between the evolution of maize and wheat prices in or-
der to eventually verify the possible emergence in the early modern period
of a single market of cereals made up of finer grains, such as wheat, and of
grains reputed to be of lower quality, such as maize (Vivanti 1967).
The third goal of this research is that of assessing the information
derived from the accounting records of farms in order to specifically ap-
praise the relevance of maize among their crops. Moreover, large compa-
nies’ accounting records give more than a hint regarding food prices (Poni
1978) which, in some cases, allow us to compose fairly consistent and pro-
longed series. These series are an interesting key to the understanding of
the big owners’ economic strategies, while at the same they allow us to eval-
uate trends in maize prices from two points of view which are comparable:
“market prices” from records in the accounting books of city markets, and
“company prices” from records in the companies’ accounting books.
Maize in Umbria’s markets and farms
Sharecropping affected the evolution of agricultural activities in Umbria
until the second half of the twentieth century (Nenci 1989), while maize be-
gan to spread throughout this Italian region in the early eighteenth cen-
tury. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, maize had indeed made
its appearance, not only on farms but also in urban markets, thus demon-
strating that this new plant, which would soon transform the agricultural
landscape, was not restrained to the agricultural sphere. On the contrary,
urban markets played a fundamental role in the success of this plant from
the Americas. Records from the market of Gubbio provide evidence of the
price of a mina1 of maize since 1727 (Graph 1). Chronological findings from
other cities place the appearance of maize around the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury: in Assisi in 1741 (Graph 2) and in Perugia in 1766.
Evidence concerning the second half of the eighteenth century re-
veals that the maize crops had already taken hold in the lands around
Perugia; a situation which would improve further under French domina-
tion. Nonetheless, maize became a steady presence in the Orvieto market
only after 1813 (Graph 4). This timeline is the same as in the nearby cities of
Tuscany (Mocarelli and Vaquero Piñeiro 2018) where maize trade also took
hold around the end of the eighteenth century: since 1780 in Sarteano, 1793
in Castiglione Fiorentino, and 1802 in Cortona.
1 73.00 litres
50
draw a comparison between the evolution of maize and wheat prices in or-
der to eventually verify the possible emergence in the early modern period
of a single market of cereals made up of finer grains, such as wheat, and of
grains reputed to be of lower quality, such as maize (Vivanti 1967).
The third goal of this research is that of assessing the information
derived from the accounting records of farms in order to specifically ap-
praise the relevance of maize among their crops. Moreover, large compa-
nies’ accounting records give more than a hint regarding food prices (Poni
1978) which, in some cases, allow us to compose fairly consistent and pro-
longed series. These series are an interesting key to the understanding of
the big owners’ economic strategies, while at the same they allow us to eval-
uate trends in maize prices from two points of view which are comparable:
“market prices” from records in the accounting books of city markets, and
“company prices” from records in the companies’ accounting books.
Maize in Umbria’s markets and farms
Sharecropping affected the evolution of agricultural activities in Umbria
until the second half of the twentieth century (Nenci 1989), while maize be-
gan to spread throughout this Italian region in the early eighteenth cen-
tury. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, maize had indeed made
its appearance, not only on farms but also in urban markets, thus demon-
strating that this new plant, which would soon transform the agricultural
landscape, was not restrained to the agricultural sphere. On the contrary,
urban markets played a fundamental role in the success of this plant from
the Americas. Records from the market of Gubbio provide evidence of the
price of a mina1 of maize since 1727 (Graph 1). Chronological findings from
other cities place the appearance of maize around the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury: in Assisi in 1741 (Graph 2) and in Perugia in 1766.
Evidence concerning the second half of the eighteenth century re-
veals that the maize crops had already taken hold in the lands around
Perugia; a situation which would improve further under French domina-
tion. Nonetheless, maize became a steady presence in the Orvieto market
only after 1813 (Graph 4). This timeline is the same as in the nearby cities of
Tuscany (Mocarelli and Vaquero Piñeiro 2018) where maize trade also took
hold around the end of the eighteenth century: since 1780 in Sarteano, 1793
in Castiglione Fiorentino, and 1802 in Cortona.
1 73.00 litres
50
