Articles
The Italus hortus: on the importance of horticultural societies in Italy in the last two centuries
Article number
1438_5
Pages
39 – 48
Language
English
Abstract
Extending over 2 million ha, including olive trees and vines, Italian fruit arboriculture is among the oldest and most multiform on the entire planet.
The depth of its historical roots and the complexity that have characterized its history from a political, social, anthropological, and cultural perspective have shaped the structure of Italian fruit growing over time, still evident in many small, familiar farms.
This evolution becomes evident from the widespread diffusion of PDO and PGI-certified productions.
Italian fruit growing is, in fact, the result of the political stability and guarantee of private property that go back to Roman civilization.
Such an attitude has spanned the centuries, not to mention the millennia, with the centuriation and the hortuli of the patrician Roman villas describing the pomari and the Orangeries of the Renaissance, the monastic gardens, the Emilia-Romagna broli, and the Mediterranean gardens, sites of multicropping agriculture in which work and leisure live together.
Modern horticulture, based on scientific knowledge and methods, dates back to the early decades of the 19th century and was boosted after the Second World War thanks to a new generation of horticultural scientists responsible, in different Universities and research centers, for the establishment of the modern basis of horticultural science in Italy and worldwide.
The depth of its historical roots and the complexity that have characterized its history from a political, social, anthropological, and cultural perspective have shaped the structure of Italian fruit growing over time, still evident in many small, familiar farms.
This evolution becomes evident from the widespread diffusion of PDO and PGI-certified productions.
Italian fruit growing is, in fact, the result of the political stability and guarantee of private property that go back to Roman civilization.
Such an attitude has spanned the centuries, not to mention the millennia, with the centuriation and the hortuli of the patrician Roman villas describing the pomari and the Orangeries of the Renaissance, the monastic gardens, the Emilia-Romagna broli, and the Mediterranean gardens, sites of multicropping agriculture in which work and leisure live together.
Modern horticulture, based on scientific knowledge and methods, dates back to the early decades of the 19th century and was boosted after the Second World War thanks to a new generation of horticultural scientists responsible, in different Universities and research centers, for the establishment of the modern basis of horticultural science in Italy and worldwide.
Authors
P. Inglese, F. Rossi, M. Tagliavini
Keywords
history, pomology, horticulture, research, SOI
Groups involved
- Division Ornamental Plants
- Division Temperate Tree Fruits
- Division Temperate Tree Nuts
- Division Tropical and Subtropical Fruit and Nuts
- Division Vine and Berry Fruits
- Division Vegetables, Roots and Tubers
- Division Horticulture for Development
- Division Horticulture for Human Health
- Division Landscape and Urban Horticulture
- Division Plant-Environment Interactions in Field Systems
- Division Plant Genetic Resources, Breeding and Biotechnology
- Division Postharvest and Quality Assurance
- Division Precision Horticulture and Engineering
- Division Greenhouse and Indoor Production Horticulture
- Commission Agroecology and Organic Farming Systems
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