From ‘pure botany’ to ‘economic botany’ – changing ideas by exchanging plants: Spain and Italy in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century

ABSTRACT

At the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the 19th, Spain and the Italian States contributed to the development of European agricultural science and the improvement of manufacturing. They collaborated with each other and reworked the most advanced models of France, Central Europe and Great Britain. Despite their somewhat less prosperous economic status, they demonstrated great originality in research and experimentation. In this process, botanical knowledge served as a starting point for a new epistemological path. Through three case studies – the botanists Antonio José Cavanilles and Domenico Nocca, and the agriculturist Filippo Re – my article analyses how Spanish and Italian naturalists and learned individuals contributed to forming the concept of ‘economic botany’ through the exchange of seeds, plant specimens, books, journals, and – more in general – opinions, becoming germinal forces in a large transnational network.

KEYWORDS:

• Botany
• agricultural science
• Spain and Italy
• enlightenment
• Napoleonic era

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the European Social Science History Conference 2021, held virtually in March 2021. To be exact, it was discussed in the session Botany and Surgery in the Long Nineteenth Century, chaired by Peyman Jafari.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 There is a broad bibliography on the historical evolution of the relationship between science, State and society. I refer to some of the studies that I found most interesting during the preparation of this article: Andrew Ede and Lesley B. Cormack, A history of science in society: from philosophy to utility, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017); James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn, Science and technology in world history: an introduction, 3rd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015); Emma C. Spary, Feeding France: New sciences of food, 1760–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Emma C. Spary, Eating the Enlightenment: French Food and the Sciences, 1670–1760 (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 2012); John Gascoigne, Science in the service of Empire: Joseph Banks, the British State and the uses of science in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

2 For reactions by admirers and detractors of the Linnaean system of classification in Spain and Italy, see respectively: Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales, eds., Carlos Linneo y la ciencia ilustrada en España (Madrid: Fundación Berndt Wistedt, 1998); Marco Beretta and Alessandro Tosi, eds., Linnaeus in Italy: The spread of a revolution in science (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications/USA, 2007). On the epistemological development of the Linnean system and in general on its dissemination in Europe, I refer most of all to: Staffan Müller-Wille, ‘Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect’, Annals of Science 70, no. 3 (2013): 305–17; Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier, ‘Lists as Research Technologies’, Isis 103, no. 4 (2012): 743–52. For botanical exchanges, I found very interesting the peculiar case analysed in Alexandra Cook, ‘Botanical exchanges: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Duchess of Portland’, History of European Ideas 33, no. 2 (2007): 142–56.

3 For a general idea of the agricultural science models that Spain and the Italian States could draw on from beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps, see: Peter M. Jones, Agricultural Enlightenment: Knowledge, technology and nature, 1750–1840 (Oxford: University Press, 2016), 133–60; Francisco García González, Gérard Béaur, and Fabrice Boudjaaba, eds., La historia rural en España y Francia (siglos XVI-XIX): Contribuciones para una historia comparada y renovada (Zaragoza: Prensa de la Universidad, 2016); Koen Stapelbroek and Jani Marjanen, eds., The rise of economic societies in the eighteenth century: Patriotic reform in Europe and North America (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Markus Cerman, ‘Rural economy and society’, in A companion to eighteenth-century Europe, ed. Peter H. Wilson (Malden–Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 47–65; Michael Sonenscher, ‘French economists and Bernese agrarians: The marquis de Mirabeau and the economic society of Berne’, History of European Ideas 33, no. 4 (2007): 411–26; Mauro Ambrosoli, The wild and the sown: Botany and agriculture in Westen Europe, 1350-1850, translated by Mary McCann Salvatorelli (Cambridge: University Press, 1997).

4 Andrés Jiménez Ángel, ‘Transatlantic correspondence and “mobile knowledge” in Alexander von Humboldt’s exploratory travels to Hispanic America’, History of European Ideas 39, no. 3 (2012): 426–39; Josep Fontana and Ramón Villares, eds., Historia de España, vol. 5: Pedro Ruiz Torres, Reformismo e Ilustración (Sabadell: Crítica/Marcial Pons, 2008), 475–98; Leoncio López-Ocón Cabrera, Breve historia de la ciencia Española (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2003), 200–17. For an institutional framework of Charles III’s ilustrado rule, see Gérard Chastagnaret and Gérard Dufour, eds., Le règne de Charles III. Le despotisme éclairé en Espagne (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2006).

5 José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez, ‘Ciencia y política durante el reinado de José I (1808-1813): el proyecto de Real Museo de Historia Natural’, Hispania: Revista española de historia 69, no. 233 (2009): 769–92; José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez and Antonio García Belmar, ‘Tres proyectos de creación de instituciones científicas durante el reinado de José I: Un estudio sobre la transmisión de la ciencia en el marco de la Guerra de la Independencia’, in La Guerra de la Independencia. Estudios, vol. 1, ed. José A. Armillas (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2001), 301–25.

6 Maria Teresa Monti, ‘Promozione del sapere e riforma delle istituzioni scientifiche nella Lombardia austriaca’, in La politica della scienza: Toscana e stati italiani nel tardo Settecento, ed. Giulio Barsanti, Vieri Becagli and Renato Pasta (Florence: Olschki, 1996), 367–92; Elena Brambilla, Libertà filosofica e giuseppinismo. Il tramonto delle corporazioni e l’ascesa degli studi scientifici in Lombardia, 1780-1796, in La politica della scienza, 393–433; Alessandra Ferraresi, ‘Dalla Facoltà filosofica alla Facoltà matematica: la formazione di ingegneri, architetti e agrimensori tra tradizione locale e modelli stranieri’, in Ingegneri a Pavia tra formazione e professione. Per una storia della Facoltà di ingegneria nel quarantesimo della rifondazione, ed. Virginio Cantoni and Alessandra Ferraresi (Milan: Cisalpino, 2007), 49–129; Agnese Visconti, ‘Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli animali: tentativi, osservazioni ed esperimenti della Società Patriotica di Milano (1776-96)’, in Le vie del cibo: Italia settentrionale (secc. XVI-XX), ed. Marina Cavallera, Silvia A. Conca Messina and Blythe Alice Raviola (Rome: Carocci, 2019), 223–34, in particular 223–6.

7 Laurent Brassart, ‘Improving useful species: A public policy of the Directoire Regime and the Napoleonic Empire (1795-1815) in Europe’, Historia agraria: Revista de agricultura e historia rural 28, no. 75 (2018): 93–113; Laurent Brassart, ‘L’introduction des buffles italiens en France (1797-1840) : un opéra-buffle’, in Le Royaume de Naples à l’heure française (1803-1809), ed. Mélanie Traversier, Igor Moullier, and Pierre-Marie Delpu (Lille: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2018), 223–44; Laurent Brassart, ‘La ferme des animaux : l’invention d’une politique de l’animal utile sous le Consulat’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française no. 3 (2014): 175–96.

8 On the issues related to ‘autarkic’ production in Italy and France, see these recent studies: Martino Lorenzo Fagnani, ‘Studying “useful plants” from Maria Theresa to Napoleon: Continuity and invisibility in agricultural science, northern Italy, the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century’, History of Science 59, no. 4 (2021): 373–406, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0073275321992914 [consulted on April 23, 2021]; Visconti, ‘Cibo per gli uomini’; Brassart, ‘Improving useful species’.

9 Fagnani, ‘Agricultural science in Napoleonic universities: Didactics and research in Pavia, Bologna and Padua’, Nuncius: Journal of the material and visual history of science 34, no. 3 (2019): 575–601; Monica Ferrari, Gianpiero Fumi, and Matteo Morandi, eds., Formare alle professioni. I saperi della cascina (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2016); Donata Brianta, ‘I luoghi del sapere agronomico: accademie, società di agricoltura e di arti meccaniche, orti agrari, atenei (1802-1814)’, in Istituzioni e cultura in età napoleonica, ed. Elena Brambilla, Carlo Capra, Aurora Scotti (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2008), 62–156; Rossano Pazzagli, Il sapere dell’agricoltura. Istruzione, cultura, economia nell’Italia dell’Ottocento (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2008). For particular examples in sugar production, see Fagnani, ‘Studying “useful plants” from Maria Theresa to Napoleon’, 388–394 and related bibliography.

10 On Cavanilles’ scientific training and contribution, see: José María López Piñero, ‘La obra botánica de Cavanilles’, in Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Valencia, ed., Antonio José Cavanilles (1745-1804): Segundo centenario de la muerte de un gran botánico (Valencia: Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, 2004), 11–146. See also the entry written by Antonio González Bueno in the Diccionario Biográfico Español, readable in the Real Academia de la Historia’s website at the link http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/11841/antonio-jose-cavanilles-palop [consulted on November 1, 2020].

11 Antonio José Cavanilles, Observations sur l’article Espagne inséré dans la nouvelle Encyclopédie (Paris: Jombert, 1784), 3–5 and 155, note. On the Spanish reactions to Masson’s criticisms, see also Niccolò Guasti, L’esilio italiano dei gesuiti spagnoli: Identità, controllo sociale e pratiche culturali (1767-1798) (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2006), 380–3. The scientific names I use in this article are those of today and not necessarily those used in the sources considered. In these sources I have at times found agreement between the scientific names used therein and the current ones, in other cases I found scientific names that are today considered synonyms, and in other cases only the common names in the language in which the document is written.

12 Antonio José Cavanilles, Icones et descriptiones plantarum quae aut sponte in Hispania crescunt, aut in hortis hospitantur, vol. 1 (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1791), 29–31.

13 Antonio José Cavanilles, Icones et descriptiones plantarum quae aut sponte in Hispania crescunt, aut in Hortis hospitantur, 6 volumes (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1791-1801); Antonio José Cavanilles, Observaciones sobre la historia natural, geografía, agricultura, población y frutos del Reyno de Valencia, 2 volumes (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1795–1797).

14 Antonio González Bueno, Tres botánicos de la Ilustración. Gómez Ortega, Cavanilles, Zea (Tres Cantons, Madrid: Nivola, 2002), 88–96.

15 Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Observaciones sobre el cultivo del arroz en el Reyno de Valencia y su influencia en la salud pública’, Memorias de la Real Academia Médica de Madrid no. 1 (1797): 99–128; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Cultivo del naranjo’, Semanario de agricultura y artes dirigido a los párrocos no. 108 (1799): 49–56; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Cultivo del arroz’, Semanario de agricultura no. 146 (1799): 245–52; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Del cultivo de las chufas’, Semanario de agricultura no. 174 (1800): 273–5; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Sobre el cultivo de algunas especies de malvas y uso económico que se puede hacer de sus fibras’, Semanario de agricultura no. 176 (1800): 305–9; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Observaciones sobre algunos vegetales que producen resina elástica’, Anales de historia natural no. 2 (1800): 124–8; Antonio José Cavanilles, ‘Del cultivo de las chufas’, Anales de ciencias naturales no. 3 (1801): 234–6.

16 González Bueno, Gómez Ortega, Cavanilles, Zea, 96–112.

17 In the archives of the Jardín Botánico of Madrid, I found two letters and a plant list written by Filippo Re: Archivo del Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid (hereinafter ARJB), DIV. XIII, 4, 2, 1 (Reggio, October 20, 1793); 4, 2, 2 (Bologna, April 2, 1804); and 4, 2, 5 (list without date or signature). For the contacts between Cavanilles and Nocca, see especially the letters written in Latin and French by the former to the latter between 1792 and 1804, kept in the Biblioteca Universitaria of Pavia: BUPv, Autografi, 3.

18 Regarding the perception of Cavanilles’ scientific authority in Italy, I add that part of his lessons at the Madrid Botanic Garden were translated into Italian as a university textbook titled Principi elementari di botanica (Genoa: Frugoni, 1808) (Elementary Principles of Botany). The translator was Domenico Viviani, Professor of Botany at the University of Genoa, as explained in Davide Arecco, ‘Scienze naturali e istituzioni in Liguria tra Sette e Ottocento’, Nuncius: Journal of the material and visual history of science 17, no. 2 (2002): 547–65, in particular 564. On Viviani (1772–1840) and his role in the Italian natural sciences, see also: Valeria Zattera, Domenico Viviani primo naturalista ligure con in appendice una scelta di epistole inedite e il suo “Viaggio negli Appennini della Liguria orientale” (1807) (La Spezia: Luna Editore, 1994).

19 Archivio di Stato di Pavia, Università – Registri, 815 e 855, 1782–1786; Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Liceo ginnasio Virgilio – parte I, 79, staff list 1774–1895. Augusto Pirola, ‘L’“Orto” e l’insegnamento della botanica a Pavia tra Sette e Ottocento’, Annali di storia pavese no. 20 (1991): 167–74, in particular 167–8.

20 Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, Archivio storico (hereinafter ANV, As), Colonia poi Classe agraria, 34, 4, Nocca to Mantua Municipality, Mantua, June 11, 1797; 33, 1, Pasquale Coddè to the Administration of the Mantua State, Mantua, September 17, 1797.

21 Domenica Nocca, De caussis tantae per multas maxime Longobardiae regiones silvarum amputationis, deque modo tot illata nemoribus damna reficiendi (Mantua: 1794).

22 I have found praises of the study mixed with criticism for the absence of a translation from Latin in: Filippo Re, Saggio di bibliografia georgica ossia Indice ragionato delle principali opere di agricoltura sì antiche che moderne a guida della studiosa gioventù (Venice: Pezzana, 1802), 135; Nicola Maria Nicolai, Memorie, leggi, ed osservazioni sulle campagne e sull’annona di Roma, vol. 3 (Rome: Pagliarini, 1803), 473.

23 On Andrés (1740–1817) see Niccolò Guasti, Juan Andrés e la cultura del Settecento (Milan-Udine, Mimesis, 2017). For the letters written by Andrés to Cavanilles see Livia Brunori, ed., Epistolario de Juan Andrés y Morell (1740-1817), 3 volumes (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 2006). In mentioning some of the letters in question, I cite from time to time the individual pages of the correspondence edited by Brunori. However, please note that the letters written directly by the various senders to Cavanilles and vice versa – although sent thanks to the intermediation of Andrés – are not included in the Brunori edition and I analyse them as unpublished documentation (unless otherwise specified).

24 Brunori, ed., Epistolario de Juan Andrés y Morell vol. 2, 812–14, 943–4, Andrés to Cavanilles, Mantua, October 28, 1793, and April 13, 1796.

25 On Bayle Barelle’s education as a botanist and agriculturist, see Martino Lorenzo Fagnani, ‘L’agraria ‘italiana’ prima e dopo Napoleone. Percorsi formativi di una scienza’, Società e storia no. 169 (2020): 457–91, in particular 463–7.

26 BUPv, Autografi, 4, Nocca to the podestà of Pavia, January 15, 1812.

27 On cotton experiments and their results, see also: Joseph Horan, ‘Napoleonic cotton cultivation: A case study in scientific expertise and agricultural innovation in France and Italy, 1806–1814’, in New perspectives on the history of life sciences and agriculture, ed. Denise Phillips and Sharon Kingsland (Cham: Springer, 2015), 73–91; Joseph Horan, ‘King Cotton on the Middle Sea: acclimatization projects and the French links to the early modern Mediterranean’, French History 29, no. 1 (2015): 93–108; Joseph Horan, ‘Fibers of empire: Cotton cultivation in France and Italy during the age of Napoleon’ (PhD dissertation, Florida State University, Tallahassee, 2013); Brassart, ‘Improving usefule species’, 105–6; Brianta, ‘I luoghi del sapere agronomico’, 122; Renata De Lorenzo, Società economiche e istruzione agraria nell’Ottocento meridionale (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1998), 181–4.

28 Domenico Nocca, ‘Storia ragionata delle piante nostrali ed esotiche dalle quali si può estrarre dello zucchero’, Giornale di fisica, chimica e storia naturale 5, no. 1, (1812): 41–52, and no. 2 (1812): 81–98. Domenico Nocca, Onomatologia seu Nomenclatura plantarum quae in Horto Medico Ticinensi coluntur anno MDCCCXIII (Pavia: Bolzani, 1813), 4. In this regard, see again Fagnani, ‘Studying “useful plants” from Maria Theresa to Napoleon’, 391.

29 ARJB, DIV. I L.S. 28 1803, f. 118 recto – f. 140 recto. Some of these species are listed with scientific names currently considered synonyms of the official ones. In particular, foxtail millet is registered as Panicum sibiricum (number 4285) and spelt as Triticum zea (number 4738). The species of oat is registered as Avena hispanica (number 4758).

30 On Zea’s studies and his direction of the Madrid Botanic Garden, see: Diana E. Soto Arango, ‘Francisco Antonio Zea y la enseñanza de la agricultura en el Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid’, Historia critica no. 16 (1998): 43–60; Diana E. Soto Arango and Miguel Ángel Puig Samper Mulero, ‘Francisco Antonio Zea (1766–1822). Las facetas de un crientífico criollo’, in Naturalistas proscritos, ed. Emilio Cervantes Ruiz de la Torre (Salamanca: Prensa de la Universidad, 2011), 61–72.

31 Gabriella Bonini and Rossano Pazzagli, ‘Filippo Re’, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 86 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 2016); Gianpiero Fumi, ‘Filippo Re (nota introduttiva)’, in Scritti teorici e tecnici di agricoltura, ed. Sergio Zaninelli, vol. 2 (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1989), 385–403. Among his explorations of the Italian countryside, see in particular the one described in Filippo Re, Viaggio al monte Ventasso ed alle terme di Quara nel Reggiano (Parma: 1798).

32 Filippo Re, Al signor Giulio Montanari della Mirandola, convittore del Collegio di Reggio e principe di lettere (Parma: 1795).

33 Giorgio Bigatti, La città operosa. Milano nell’Ottocento (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2000), 64; Maria Luisa Boriani and Luca Baroni, ‘L’orto agrario di Bologna’, Rivista di storia dell’agricoltura 36, no. 1 (1996): 123–82, in particular 129–46.

34 Emilio Sereni, Per la storia del paesaggio agrario e del pensiero agronomico dell’Emilia Romagna (Bologna: Istituzione Villa Smeraldi Museo della civiltà contadina, 2012), 48.

35 Filippo Re, ‘Propagazione delle piante per mezzo della divisione delle radici, delle margotte, de’ piantoni, e dell’innesto’, Biblioteca di campagna, 1805, book 2: 97–122; Filippo Re, ‘Della coltivazione de’ cardi negli orti bolognesi’, Annali dell’agricoltura del Regno d’Italia (hereinafter AARI), 1809, book 1: 75–84; Filippo Re, ‘Della maniera con cui si irrigano gli orti nel circondario di Bologna con fig.’, AARI, 1809, book 1: 84–7; Filippo Re, ‘Lettera sulla coltivazione dell’anice nel dipartimento del Rubicone al sig. Alamanno Isolani’, AA, 1809, book 1: 22–7; Filippo Re, ‘Della coltivazione dei persici nel dipartimento del Panaro’, AARI, 1809, book 3: 143–56; Filippo Re, ‘Dei motivi che si oppongono alla generale propagazione delle patate nel Regno d’Italia e della loro coltivazione’, AARI, 1811, book 9: 252–69.

36 Boriani and Baroni, ‘L’orto agrario di Bologna’, 143, 107–9; Fumi, ‘Filippo Re (nota introduttiva)’, 392.

37 Filippo Re, ‘Sul morbo che guasta i frumenti, in Toscana detto golpe e volpe, e in Lombardia marzetto, carbone o carboncino’, Giornale d’agricoltura, 1807, book 1: 59–68; Filippo Re, ‘Nota sopra una specie di frumento che si coltiva nei contorni di Reggio detto farro’, AARI, 1809, book 1: 93–4.

38 Filippo Re, Saggio di nosologia vegetabile (Florence: Tofani e Comp., 1806); Filippo Re, Saggio teorico-pratico sulle malattie delle piante (Venice: Vitarelli, 1807); Filippo Re, L’ortolano dirozzato, 2 volumes (Milan: Silvestri, 1811).

39 Filippo Re, ‘Catalogo delle piante coltivate nell’orto agrario della r. Università di Bologna nell’anno 1812’, AARI, 1812, book 14: 118–52.

40 ARJB, DIV. XIII, 4, 2, 1, Filippo Re to Cavanilles, Reggio, October 20, 1793. A note – probably by Cavanilles himself – on the same letter states that the Spanish botanist answered on March 1 or 2, 1794.

41 ARJB, DIV. XIII, 4, 2, 5, list of species attached to the previous letter.

42 On the agricultural garden at the University of Padua, see: Noemi Tornadore, ‘Pietro Arduino’, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, ed. Sandra Casellato and Luciana Sitran Rea (Padua-Treviso: Centro per la Storia dell’Università di Padova, 2002), 3–8; Pier Giovanni Zanetti, ‘L’orto agrario di Padova e l’agricoltura nuova’, Rivista di storia dell’agricoltura 36, no. 1 (1996): 5–67.

43 Filippo Re, L’ortolano dirozzato, vol. 2, 393; Filippo Re, Nuovi elementi di agricoltura, vol. 2 (Milan: Silvestri, 1818), 154.

44 Brunori, ed., Epistolario de Juan Andrés y Morell, vol. 2, 1057–8, Andrés to Cavanilles, Parma, August 15, 1801; 1147, Andrés to Cavanilles, Parma, July 4, 1803; 1147-1148, Andrés to Cavanilles, Parma, August 17, 1803. These three letters are kept in ARJB, DIV. XIII, 5, 2, 40–1 and 5, 3, 33. It is surprising that in the inventory (ARJB, DIV. XIII, 1, 33, 1) of the personal library of Cavanilles, drawn up on his death in 1804, no published text appear by Filippo Re.

45 ARJB, DIV. XIII, 4, 2, 2, Re to Cavanilles, Bologna, April 2, 1804. On Melón, his initial role in the editing of the Semanario de agricultura y artes, and his interest in agricultural experimentation, see the entry written by Argimiro Calama y Rosellón for the Diccionario Biográfico Español, readable in the Real Academia de la Historia’s website at the link http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/78184/juan-antonio-melon-gonzalez [consulted on November 1, 2020].

46 Re, Saggio di bibliografia georgica, 236–37. Re used the title Species plantarum Peruvianarum et Chiliensium, probably referring to Hipólito Ruiz and José Pavón, Flora Peruviana et Chilensis sive Novorum generum plantarum Peruvianarum et Chiliensis descriptiones et icones, 3 vols. (Madrid: Typis Gabrielis de Sancha, 1794–1802), with two other volumes entirely of beautiful plates of the species described in the text.

47 Re, Saggio di bibliografia georgica, 257.

48 ANV, As, Lettere di accademici illustri, 11, Filippo Re expresses his thanks for the appointment as ‘correspondent’ of the Academy’s agricultural branch, Reggio, May 5, 1792. See also the lists of the members in ANV, As, Cataloghi degli accademici, 5, 8–10, 1810, 1811 and 1814. For his dissertations see: ANV, As, Dissertazioni accademiche – Agronomia, 56/5, January 20, 1794, and 56/15, January 26, 1795.

49 For the extensive correspondence between Re and Nocca, see the dossier labelled with the name of Filippo Re in BUPv, Autografi, 4: the letters cover a chronological span that goes from the 1790s to Re’s death in 1817. As for the experiments of Bayle Barelle and his staff on cereal growing and hybridization, see Fagnani, ‘Agricultural science in Napoleonic universities’, 589–90.

50 On the economy situation in Spain and central-northern Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, considering the European context, see: James M. Chypher, The process of economic development, 4th ed. (London-New York: Routledge, 2014), 88, 148; Paolo Malanima, ‘Measuring the Italian Economy. 1300-1861’, Rivista di storia economica 19, no. 3 (2003): 265–95, in particular 286–8.

51 Óscar Recio Morales, ‘La “España italiana” del Setecientos: un balance storiografico’, Rivista storica italiana 127, no. 1 (2015): 274–303. See also Francisco Chacón, Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Giovanni Murgia, and Gianfranco Tore, eds., Spagna e Italia in Età moderna: storiografie a confronto (Rome: Viella, 2009).

52 Among Sismondi’s writings in those very first years of the new century that could be of some interest to the Italian context that I have described, I refer most of all to: Tableau de l’agriculture toscane (Geneva: Pashoud, 1801); Traité de la richesse commerciale ou principes d’économie politique, appliqués à la législation du commerce (Geneva: Pashoud, 1803). Bayle Barelle, for his part, expressed quite a strong position against new investments in acclimatization plans – both private and public, I may assume – in the opening of his Saggio intorno la fabbricazione del cacio detto Parmigiano (Milan: Silvestri, 1808), 6–7. In particular, he took some examples of ‘exotic goods’, such as coffee and pineapple, reminding readers that those species had been cultivated in many Italian greenhouses for two centuries, but had never been grown in open fields. He felt it was far better to concentrate investments in crop plants – either native or by that time acclimatized – that were already part of Italian heritage. Regarding landowners’ responsibilities in improving national agriculture, see also: Giuseppe Bayle Barelle, ‘Del dovere, che hanno i proprietarj di dirigere co’ loro lumi le campestri faccende, e dei rapporti dell’agricoltura cogli altri rami dell’utile sapere’, Giornale d’agricoltura, 1807, book 1: 9–43; Filippo Re, ‘Sopra alcuni ostacoli che i proprietarj ed agricoltori oppongono al miglioramento dell’agricoltura’, AARI, 1809, book 1: 3–21. Both of these pieces addressed issues of ‘enlightened landownership’ and the existing obstacles to it. They were, quite significantly, the inaugural lesson given by Bayle Barelle as newly appointed Professor of Agricultural Science (the former) and the preface to the first issue of the important journal Annali dell’agricoltura edited by Re (the latter).