Page 80 - 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. 80
maize to the people!
Although the survey is incomplete in terms of territorial coverage, the
map allows us to identify quite clearly the areas where maize was most
widespread. The geography thus outlined also shows us the spread of the
new cereal a few decades after the start of its use as a food.
In the lower eastern Friuli region, all the villages involved in the sur-
vey were rich in maize. This situation seems to be the same towards the
north, in the villages near Udine. Here the diffusion area opens, and in-
volves a wide range of locations north of the city. The substantial number
of observations relating to this area assigns, without exception, high per-
centages of maize. It can be concluded that this was the Friulian area most
suited to the cultivation of maize. To the west of the Tagliamento River, the
new crop was an important reality in some villages of the western foothills,
perhaps for the same reasons it was widely cultivated in the nearby Belluno
area (Fassina 1982, 47-50). In the rest of the Patria, with a few notable excep-
tions, maize was present to a lesser extent or was completely absent. To the
east of the north-south axis that passed roughly through Udine, maize was,
in the areas covered by the Grimani Survey, completely absent in the east-
ern mountain district. In these territories, wheat, rye or even oats were al-
ternated in crop rotations with red sorghum and buckwheat. To the west of
this same axis, maize is attested in much smaller quantities than the aver-
age, both in the low and the medium plains. Similar results have been ob-
tained by analysing the plain to the east of the Tagliamento River, where
the cereal was used least. A different situation applies to the more north-
ern territories. The location of maize in seventeenth-century Friuli, as it
emerges from the Grimani Survey, is in some ways surprising. To date, it
has been frequently suggested that maize cultivation began in the marshy
areas of the Veneto countryside. These data suggest, however, that an early
start was not followed by an equally early affirmation. In 1656, a good part
of the lower plain was still poor in terms of maize. Most of the American
cereal was found in its eastern part, while in the western part it was only
found in the foothills. There is absolutely no information on the northern
part of the province, but since it is an Alpine area, the relevant territory im-
ported most of the cereals from the outside. This distribution of maize only
partially follows the physical and climatic subdivisions of the province, and
seems rather the result of other processes which, at the moment, I am not
able to identify. One hundred and fifty years later, things were very differ-
ent. According to a nineteenth-century survey, maize was widespread with
percentages close to 90% across the region.
78
Although the survey is incomplete in terms of territorial coverage, the
map allows us to identify quite clearly the areas where maize was most
widespread. The geography thus outlined also shows us the spread of the
new cereal a few decades after the start of its use as a food.
In the lower eastern Friuli region, all the villages involved in the sur-
vey were rich in maize. This situation seems to be the same towards the
north, in the villages near Udine. Here the diffusion area opens, and in-
volves a wide range of locations north of the city. The substantial number
of observations relating to this area assigns, without exception, high per-
centages of maize. It can be concluded that this was the Friulian area most
suited to the cultivation of maize. To the west of the Tagliamento River, the
new crop was an important reality in some villages of the western foothills,
perhaps for the same reasons it was widely cultivated in the nearby Belluno
area (Fassina 1982, 47-50). In the rest of the Patria, with a few notable excep-
tions, maize was present to a lesser extent or was completely absent. To the
east of the north-south axis that passed roughly through Udine, maize was,
in the areas covered by the Grimani Survey, completely absent in the east-
ern mountain district. In these territories, wheat, rye or even oats were al-
ternated in crop rotations with red sorghum and buckwheat. To the west of
this same axis, maize is attested in much smaller quantities than the aver-
age, both in the low and the medium plains. Similar results have been ob-
tained by analysing the plain to the east of the Tagliamento River, where
the cereal was used least. A different situation applies to the more north-
ern territories. The location of maize in seventeenth-century Friuli, as it
emerges from the Grimani Survey, is in some ways surprising. To date, it
has been frequently suggested that maize cultivation began in the marshy
areas of the Veneto countryside. These data suggest, however, that an early
start was not followed by an equally early affirmation. In 1656, a good part
of the lower plain was still poor in terms of maize. Most of the American
cereal was found in its eastern part, while in the western part it was only
found in the foothills. There is absolutely no information on the northern
part of the province, but since it is an Alpine area, the relevant territory im-
ported most of the cereals from the outside. This distribution of maize only
partially follows the physical and climatic subdivisions of the province, and
seems rather the result of other processes which, at the moment, I am not
able to identify. One hundred and fifty years later, things were very differ-
ent. According to a nineteenth-century survey, maize was widespread with
percentages close to 90% across the region.
78
