Page 57 - 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. 57
maize in umbr ia (centr al italy)
economic and demographic cycles in the Ancien RĂ©gime European socie-
ty (Romano 1967). At any rate, while researching the trends in prices and
wages in Milan during the eighteenth century, Aldo de Maddalena brought
scholars’ attention to the need to include maize among the commodities
which determined offer and demand on the Milan market (De Maddalena
1974, 108).
It must be emphasized that the results of the analysis based on data
concerning Umbria are still partial and provisional. However, despite dif-
ficulties in interpreting different currencies and units of measurement, de-
pending on different markets and geographical areas, the collected findings
highlight perfectly synchronized prices in all the markets considered. This
allows us to recognize some general phases relevant for all the areas exam-
ined. The first long phase of relatively steady market prices can be identi-
fied from the first half to the 80s of the eighteenth century, which was in-
terrupted between 1765 and 1767 and between 1774 and 1775 by two intervals
of growing prices. In Assisi, from 1741 to 1764 the average price of a staio2
of maize was around 3.69 scudi3, which later grew to 5 scudi between 1765
and 1767; once the subsistence crisis of the 1760s had been overcome (Gori
1989, 573), a staio fell to 3.5 scudi, with the exception of the 1774-1775 interval
when the maize price started to rise again up to 6-6.6 scudi. Between 1778
and 1798, average prices in the Assisi market (Graph 2) began to move up-
wards, reaching 5.68 scudi. This represented a 54% increase compared with
the mid-century prices. These data can be compared with those from the
Gubbio market, where maize prices were expressed in baiocchi for a mina
(Graph 1). In this second case too, we can observe a phase of price stability
lasting until 1765, followed by a phase of increasing prices between 1766 and
1768, when the price of a mina of maize reached 143 baiocchi (between 1766
and 1768 the average price was 77.9 baiocchi for a mina) before dropping
again to 103.20 baiocchi in 1775. Both in Gubbio and in Assisi, from the mid-
70s to the end of the eighteenth century, maize prices experienced a signifi-
cant growth: between 1776 and 1797 a mina reached the average price of 161.5
baiocchi per year, that is a 107% increase since the middle of the century.
The examined dynamics show that, during the eighteenth century and
before the 1798 breakdown triggered by the arrival of French armies, it is
possible to identify four phases in the trend of cereal prices in the Umbrian
2 24.36 litres
3 The scudo was the currency of the Papal States until 1866. It was divided into 100
baiocchi.
55
economic and demographic cycles in the Ancien RĂ©gime European socie-
ty (Romano 1967). At any rate, while researching the trends in prices and
wages in Milan during the eighteenth century, Aldo de Maddalena brought
scholars’ attention to the need to include maize among the commodities
which determined offer and demand on the Milan market (De Maddalena
1974, 108).
It must be emphasized that the results of the analysis based on data
concerning Umbria are still partial and provisional. However, despite dif-
ficulties in interpreting different currencies and units of measurement, de-
pending on different markets and geographical areas, the collected findings
highlight perfectly synchronized prices in all the markets considered. This
allows us to recognize some general phases relevant for all the areas exam-
ined. The first long phase of relatively steady market prices can be identi-
fied from the first half to the 80s of the eighteenth century, which was in-
terrupted between 1765 and 1767 and between 1774 and 1775 by two intervals
of growing prices. In Assisi, from 1741 to 1764 the average price of a staio2
of maize was around 3.69 scudi3, which later grew to 5 scudi between 1765
and 1767; once the subsistence crisis of the 1760s had been overcome (Gori
1989, 573), a staio fell to 3.5 scudi, with the exception of the 1774-1775 interval
when the maize price started to rise again up to 6-6.6 scudi. Between 1778
and 1798, average prices in the Assisi market (Graph 2) began to move up-
wards, reaching 5.68 scudi. This represented a 54% increase compared with
the mid-century prices. These data can be compared with those from the
Gubbio market, where maize prices were expressed in baiocchi for a mina
(Graph 1). In this second case too, we can observe a phase of price stability
lasting until 1765, followed by a phase of increasing prices between 1766 and
1768, when the price of a mina of maize reached 143 baiocchi (between 1766
and 1768 the average price was 77.9 baiocchi for a mina) before dropping
again to 103.20 baiocchi in 1775. Both in Gubbio and in Assisi, from the mid-
70s to the end of the eighteenth century, maize prices experienced a signifi-
cant growth: between 1776 and 1797 a mina reached the average price of 161.5
baiocchi per year, that is a 107% increase since the middle of the century.
The examined dynamics show that, during the eighteenth century and
before the 1798 breakdown triggered by the arrival of French armies, it is
possible to identify four phases in the trend of cereal prices in the Umbrian
2 24.36 litres
3 The scudo was the currency of the Papal States until 1866. It was divided into 100
baiocchi.
55
