Emilio Sereni, politician, historian, geographer and linguist, was one of the most important scholars of the agricultural landscape. He wrote the Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano, published in 1961, and numerous essays on the history of Italian, European and Mediterranean agriculture. He defined the agricultural landscape as “that form that man, in the course and for the purposes of his agricultural production activities, consciously and systematically imprints on the natural landscape”. The agricultural landscape is, therefore, produced by the customs of generations close in time: the result of a becoming or doing diluted in history. Testimony to the expanse of his research interests are the wealth of materials kept in the Sereni Library-Archive of Gattatico, which preserves his book collection, his documentary archive with thousands of files catalogued according to the scientific fields practiced by the author, and over 300,000 bibliographic files with notes, pictures and photographs. Sereni addressed themes regarding the history of the landscape, agriculture and social classes, from a long-term perspective, from the ancient to the contemporary age. Fully conversant in several languages, he traced the philological origins of the main stages related to agriculture. In studying the Italian situation, he focused in depth on the South in ancient times, studying the foundation of the cities on the Hellenic model, their urban structures, and their relationship with the countryside. The article will examine the evolution of agricultural and landscape structures in southern Italy and Greece in a comparative way, through the Serenian method which focuses on human practices of land use. The work drew on the material conserved in the Serenian archive, integrated with more recent publications on the environmental and rural history of Greece. The purpose of the article is to highlight, through a comparative analysis, the development of the principal Mediterranean crops (cereals, vines and olives) and the evolution of their production, comparing the different effects this had on the agricultural landscape in the past and in the contemporary world.
Per una storia del paesaggio agrario mediterraneo: Italia e Grecia con lo sguardo di Emilio Sereni
Roberto Ibba
2023-01-01
Abstract
Emilio Sereni, politician, historian, geographer and linguist, was one of the most important scholars of the agricultural landscape. He wrote the Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano, published in 1961, and numerous essays on the history of Italian, European and Mediterranean agriculture. He defined the agricultural landscape as “that form that man, in the course and for the purposes of his agricultural production activities, consciously and systematically imprints on the natural landscape”. The agricultural landscape is, therefore, produced by the customs of generations close in time: the result of a becoming or doing diluted in history. Testimony to the expanse of his research interests are the wealth of materials kept in the Sereni Library-Archive of Gattatico, which preserves his book collection, his documentary archive with thousands of files catalogued according to the scientific fields practiced by the author, and over 300,000 bibliographic files with notes, pictures and photographs. Sereni addressed themes regarding the history of the landscape, agriculture and social classes, from a long-term perspective, from the ancient to the contemporary age. Fully conversant in several languages, he traced the philological origins of the main stages related to agriculture. In studying the Italian situation, he focused in depth on the South in ancient times, studying the foundation of the cities on the Hellenic model, their urban structures, and their relationship with the countryside. The article will examine the evolution of agricultural and landscape structures in southern Italy and Greece in a comparative way, through the Serenian method which focuses on human practices of land use. The work drew on the material conserved in the Serenian archive, integrated with more recent publications on the environmental and rural history of Greece. The purpose of the article is to highlight, through a comparative analysis, the development of the principal Mediterranean crops (cereals, vines and olives) and the evolution of their production, comparing the different effects this had on the agricultural landscape in the past and in the contemporary world.
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
