16C Marketing & Preparing the products of gardens, farms, fields, & waters in Italy

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) The Fishmonger & Christ in the House of Mary and Martha

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536–1591) continued the Flemish theme of markets & people dining, but only rarely did he insert the religious scene in the background of his paintings. In fact, some of the paintings of Campi, such as his depictions of people eating, have been seen as lustful. While lust was certainly depicted between men & women in the Flemish paintings, it was seldom inserted into people's interactions with food itself.

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) The Fruit Seller

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) Chicken Vendors

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) Market Scene

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) Fishmongers

Vincenzo Campi (Italian painter, c 1536 – 1591) Fishmonger

Butchers, fishmongers, & poultry peddlers appeared in the northern Italian art of  Bartolomeo Passarotti (1529-1592)  & Annibale Carracci, many made in Cremona & Bologna between about 1580 & 1585. The evolution of these Flemish-based scenes from daily life signaled the birth of more realist genre painting in Italy.

Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian artist, 1529-1592) Butcher Shop, 1580s. 

Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian artist, 1529-1592) Les marchandes de volaille, 1577. Note: looks as if the market maid is wearing a tennis shoe...

Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian artist, 1529-1592) The Fish Stall

Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian artist, 1529-1592) Two Market Women with Boy selling poultry, gourds, & onions

Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian artist, 1529-1592) Baker Preparing Pies

Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bolognese, 1560-1609) may have been the most admired painter of his time & a vital force in the creation of Baroque style. Carracci rejected the artificiality of Mannerist painting, championing a return to nature & everyday people engaged in daily activities. While he did produce religious paintings, he did not insert religious vignettes into his paintings of everyday folks fishing & hunting for, preparing, or eating food as the Flemish painters had several decades earlier.

Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bolognese, 1560-1609) The Butcher Shop

Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bolognese, 1560-1609) Butcher Shop c 1580

Pruning 1580

1580 Pruning Italian School The Labours of the Months

Making Hay 1515 Illuminated Manuscript by Simon Bening (1484–1561)

1515 Da Costa Hours, in Latin Illuminated by Simon Bening (1484–1561) Belgium, Bruges, c 1515 Making Hay

Women Work in the Fields in addition to Her Other Chores

If the husband has sheep of his own, then his wife may have some of the wool, to make her husband & herself some clothes... she may also take wool to spin for the cloth makers. That way she can earn her own living, & still have plenty of time to do other work... It is the wife's occupation to winnow corn, to make malt, to wash clothes, to make hay & to cut corn. In time of need she should help her husband fill the dung-cart, drive the plough, & load the hay & corn. She should also go to the market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, pigs, geese & corn. & also to buy the things needed for the household. haymaking.

William FitzHerbert, Book of Husbandry (c. 1140)

Harvesting Grain 1568 after Étienne Delaune (French artist, 1518-1595)

 Anonymous woodcut after 1568 Étienne Delaune (French artist, 1518-1595) Labours of the Months 

The timing of the harvest in the Middle Ages was vitally important.  If the wheat was too dry, the grain would fall off.  If it was too wet, the grain would rot.  To ensure that his own crops did not go to waste, the lord of the manor could demand extra labour services called "boon-work" during harvest time.  Boon-work was hated by the peasants, as it delayed their own harvesting & could cause their own crops to be ruined.  As the peasants had to give about half their crop away as rent & taxes, they needed to farm a large area of land to provide an adequate diet for their families.  People dying of starvation was not unusual in the Middle Ages. This was especially true when bad weather led to a poor harvest.

Harvesting - Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619)

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619)  A Summer Landscape with Peasants Harvesting with a View of Antwerp Beyond

Grain agriculture in ancient Rome provided bread for everyman's table & was idealized among the social elite as a way of life. Cicero considered farming the best of all Roman occupations. In his treatise On Duties, he declared that "of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man." When one of his clients was derided in court for preferring a rural lifestyle, Cicero defended country life as "the teacher of economy, of industry, & of justice." Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come."  Cato, Columella, Varro & Palladius wrote handbooks on farming.

Staple crops included wheat, emmer, spelt, & barley, all of them used for bread, the mainstay of every Roman table. In his treatise De agricultura ("On Farming", 2nd century BC), Cato wrote that the best farms contained a vineyard, followed by an irrigated garden, willow plantation, olive orchard, meadow, grain land, forest trees, vineyard trained on trees, & lastly acorn woodlands. "The people living in the city of Rome constituted a huge market for the purchase of food produced on Italian farms.  Cato claimed that a small farm should have "a foreman, a foreman's wife, ten laborers, one ox driver, one donkey driver, one man in charge of the willow grove, one swineherd, in all sixteen persons; two oxen, two donkeys for wagon work, one donkey for the mill work." 

Land ownership was a dominant factor in distinguishing the aristocracy from the common person, & the more land a Roman owned, the more important he would be in the city. Soldiers were often rewarded with land from the commander they served. Though farms depended on slave labor, free men & citizens were hired at farms to oversee the slaves & ensure that the farms ran smoothly.  The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner & his family; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner & a tenant divide up a farm's produce; forced labor by slaves owned by aristocrats & supervised by slave managers; & other arrangements in which a farm was leased to a tenant.

There was much commerce between the provinces of the empire, & all regions of the empire were largely economically interdependent. Some provinces specialized in the production of grains including wheat, emmer, spelt, barley, & millet; others in wine & others in olive oil, depending on the soil type. Columella writes in his Res Rustica, "Soil that is heavy, chalky, & wet is not unsuited to the growing for winter wheat & spelt. Barley tolerates no place except one that is loose & dry."  Pliny the Elder wrote extensively about agriculture in his Naturalis Historia including chapter XVIII on The Natural History of Grain 

In the Roman Empire, some calculated that a family of 6 people would need to cultivate 12 iugera/ 3 hectares of land to meet minimum food requirements (without animals). Romans could acquire land for a farm in one of three ways. The most common way to gain land was to purchase the land. Though some lower class citizens did own small pieces of land, they often found it too difficult & expensive to maintain, & would sell it to someone in the aristocracy who had the financial backing to support a farm. Though there were some public lands available to the common person for use, aristocrats also tended to purchase those pieces of land, which caused a great deal of tension between the two classes. Some theorize that “Mass eviction of the poor by the rich underlay the political tensions & civil wars of the last century of the Roman Republic.” Another way to acquire land was as a reward for going to war. High ranking soldiers returning from war would often be given small pieces of public land or land in provinces as a way of paying them for their services. The last way to obtain land was through inheritance. A father could leave his land to his family, usually to his son, in the event of his death.


Cato explained that though some small farms were owned by lower class citizens & soldiers, much of the land was controlled by the noble class of Rome. Land ownership was just one of many distinctions that set the aristocracy apart from the lower classes. Aristocracy would "reorganize small holdings into larger more profitable farms in order to compete with other nobles." It was considered a point of pride to own not just the largest piece of land, but also to have land that grew high quality produce. As Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come." Careful planning went into every detail of owning & maintaining a farm in Roman culture.

Harvesting - Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619)

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Summer The Harvest

Grain agriculture in ancient Rome provided bread for everyman's table & was idealized among the social elite as a way of life. Cicero considered farming the best of all Roman occupations. In his treatise On Duties, he declared that "of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man." When one of his clients was derided in court for preferring a rural lifestyle, Cicero defended country life as "the teacher of economy, of industry, & of justice." Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come."  Cato, Columella, Varro & Palladius wrote handbooks on farming.

Staple crops included wheat, emmer, spelt, & barley, all of them used for bread, the mainstay of every Roman table. In his treatise De agricultura ("On Farming", 2nd century BC), Cato wrote that the best farms contained a vineyard, followed by an irrigated garden, willow plantation, olive orchard, meadow, grain land, forest trees, vineyard trained on trees, & lastly acorn woodlands. "The people living in the city of Rome constituted a huge market for the purchase of food produced on Italian farms.  Cato claimed that a small farm should have "a foreman, a foreman's wife, ten laborers, one ox driver, one donkey driver, one man in charge of the willow grove, one swineherd, in all sixteen persons; two oxen, two donkeys for wagon work, one donkey for the mill work." 

Land ownership was a dominant factor in distinguishing the aristocracy from the common person, & the more land a Roman owned, the more important he would be in the city. Soldiers were often rewarded with land from the commander they served. Though farms depended on slave labor, free men & citizens were hired at farms to oversee the slaves & ensure that the farms ran smoothly.  The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner & his family; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner & a tenant divide up a farm's produce; forced labor by slaves owned by aristocrats & supervised by slave managers; & other arrangements in which a farm was leased to a tenant.

There was much commerce between the provinces of the empire, & all regions of the empire were largely economically interdependent. Some provinces specialized in the production of grains including wheat, emmer, spelt, barley, & millet; others in wine & others in olive oil, depending on the soil type. Columella writes in his Res Rustica, "Soil that is heavy, chalky, & wet is not unsuited to the growing for winter wheat & spelt. Barley tolerates no place except one that is loose & dry."  Pliny the Elder wrote extensively about agriculture in his Naturalis Historia including chapter XVIII on The Natural History of Grain 

In the Roman Empire, some calculated that a family of 6 people would need to cultivate 12 iugera/ 3 hectares of land to meet minimum food requirements (without animals). Romans could acquire land for a farm in one of three ways. The most common way to gain land was to purchase the land. Though some lower class citizens did own small pieces of land, they often found it too difficult & expensive to maintain, & would sell it to someone in the aristocracy who had the financial backing to support a farm. Though there were some public lands available to the common person for use, aristocrats also tended to purchase those pieces of land, which caused a great deal of tension between the two classes. Some theorize that “Mass eviction of the poor by the rich underlay the political tensions & civil wars of the last century of the Roman Republic.” Another way to acquire land was as a reward for going to war. High ranking soldiers returning from war would often be given small pieces of public land or land in provinces as a way of paying them for their services. The last way to obtain land was through inheritance. A father could leave his land to his family, usually to his son, in the event of his death.


Cato explained that though some small farms were owned by lower class citizens & soldiers, much of the land was controlled by the noble class of Rome. Land ownership was just one of many distinctions that set the aristocracy apart from the lower classes. Aristocracy would "reorganize small holdings into larger more profitable farms in order to compete with other nobles." It was considered a point of pride to own not just the largest piece of land, but also to have land that grew high quality produce. As Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come." Careful planning went into every detail of owning & maintaining a farm in Roman culture.

June Women sell Garden Fruits & Vegetables while others Harvest Grain 1500s

Francesco Bassano the Younger (1563-1570) June Women selling Garden Fruits & Vegetables & Harvesting Grain

Women Marketing 1140

If the husband has sheep of his own, then his wife may have some of the wool, to make her husband & herself some clothes... she may also take wool to spin for the cloth makers. That way she can earn her own living, & still have plenty of time to do other work... It is the wife's occupation to winnow corn, to make malt, to wash clothes, to make hay & to cut corn. In time of need she should help her husband fill the dung-cart, drive the plough, & load the hay & corn. She should also go to the market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, pigs, geese & corn. & also to buy the things needed for the household. haymaking.
          William FitzHerbert, Book of Husbandry (c. 1140)

Harvesting - Food, Clothes, Cold Baths, & NO Women 1636

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Summer 1607

Clothing, Food, & Drink for Summer 1656

"The regiment for the time of Summer, June, July, and August. The shepheards in summer been clothed with light gowns and single, their shirts and sheets that they ly in be linnen, for of all cloath it is the coldest... and they eat light meats, as Chickens with veriuyce, young Hares, Rabbets, Lettise, Purselain, Melons, Gowrds, Cucumbers, Peares, Plumbs... They drink oft fresh water when they be thirsty, save only at dinner and supper time, and then they do drink feebl green Wine, single Beer, or small Ale. Also they keep them from over great travell, or over forcing themselves, for in this time is nothing grievouser than chafing. In this season they eschue the company of women, and they bathe them oft in cold water to asswage the heat of their bodies enforced by labours. Alway they have with them sugarcandy or other Sugar whereof they take little and often."

      The Shepheards Kalender 1656

Thanks to Elizabeth B. Archibald's "Ask The Past"

Harvesting & "the lothsome stench of the armepits" 1605

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Four Seasons - Summer - Haymaking

Dealing with the Underarm in Summer 1605

"We will here discouer and discourse of the lothsome stench of the armepits... and how nearer that the stench is to the nose, so much the lothsomer is it. This stench is augmented through great labour at hot times, through want of shifting and alteration of clothes, through great incontinencie, and through some corrupted humors of the body. Then for to remedie this stench, it is needful (according to the quality of the person) that all such are to be purged and let bloud, and that they afterwards do bath in these odoriferous herbes, as Mints, Melilot, Lauander, Ireos, and such like... Marmalade with spices doth also expel all stench."

      Christoph Wirsung, The General Practise of Physicke 1605

Thanks to Elizabeth B. Archibald's "Ask The Past"

Harvesting - as "a cooperative effort" late 1500s

 Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Four Seasons - Summer

Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus described the "Germans" as a tribal society of free peasant farmers & warriors, who cultivated their own lands. About 500 years later, European villagers built houses, surrounded by individually owned cultivated fields & meadows, woods, & wasteland used by the entire community. Shared oxen & plow passed from one field to another, & harvesting usually was a cooperative effort.

Establishing a 17C Dutch Vineryard by Jan van der Groen (1635-1671)

Het inleggen der Wyngaerden (Establishment of vineyards) From Jan van der Groen - Den Nederlandtsen Hovenier (1670).  

In 17C England, the relationship between man & nature was evolving, as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of Nature."  The 17C Dutch property owner believed that it was his religious duty to order God's creation - Nature untamed.  Improving, clipping, trimming, & geometrically ordering Nature was morally righteous. God's improved garden must become a balance of beauty & utility. This view of Nature perfected was promoted in gardening manuals, such as 1669 De Nederlandtsen Hovenier by Jan van der Groen (1635-1671), the gardener of Orange. It was man's responsibility to see that God's gift should be "dressed up. made fine, in good order, elegant & pleasurable." The book functioned as a manual & a visual source of information on "Dutch Classic Garden Architecture."  The typical 17C Dutch design pattern has the house standing at the end of an imaginary axis, which divides a rectangular piece of land into two halves. If possible, the rectangle has ideal dimensions, length & width as four to three. Generally, the whole is enclosed by trees, but it may also be surrounded by a canal system. In this perfection of God's undisciplined Nature, the rectangle itself is again divided into square gardens, usually decorated with French foliage & Italian flowers. In this garden may be mazes, deciduous walks & deciduous giants. Walks guide along artfully constructed trellises, & there are also low fruit trees in diagonal rows intermingled with berries & grapes. Box hedges often surround low ornamental vegetation. There are also flower beds with pots on tiles. The geometric practical kitchen garden, a square or rectangle, was divided into equal parts by crossing paths. Roots, salad plants, & aromatic & medicinal herbs filled the beds. Useful herbs were part of another important component of Dutch garden design. In addition to their beauty & recreational uses, gardens also had to be practical & productive, providing fruits, vegetables, & herbs. Van der Groen insisted that these gardens should be profitable, healthful, pleasurable, & salutary. The oak, maple, & ash trees provided shade for the walkways & wood for warmth & building.  The garden's decorative water could also serve as a pond for edible fish & irrigation for the growing plants. 

See

Crisp, Frank
1924 Mediieval Gardens. (Two vols.) 
John Lane, London.

Culpeper, Nicholas
1990 Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician Enlarged. 
(Reprint of 1814 edition.)
Meyerbooks, Glenwood, Illinois.

Danckaerts, Jasper
1913 The Journal of Jasper Danckaerts (1679-1680),
ed. by B. B. James and J. F. Jameson.
Barnes and Noble, New York.

D' Avity; Pierre
1646 Newe archontologia cosmica. 
Wolfgang Hoffman, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

De Caus, Salomon
1980 Hortus Palatinus: die Entwurfe zum
Heidelberger Schlossgarten von Salomon de
Caus. (2 vols.) Reprint of Hortus Palatinus
a Friderico rege Boemiaeelectore Palatino
Heidelbergae extructus, 1620 
Grune Reihe, Worms, Germany.

De Jong, Erik
1990 For Profit and Ornament: The Function
and Meaning of Dutch Garden Art in the
Period of William and Mary, 1650-1702. 
In The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century.
Dunbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC

De Vries, Hans Vredeman
1980 Hortorum viridariorumque elegantes et multiplicis
formae. Reprint of 1583 with additional
sheets from 1587. 
Van Hoeve, Amsterdam.

Fuchs, Leonhart
2001 The New Herbal of 1543. Taschen, Cologne,
Germany.
Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 34, 2005. 75

Hopper, Florence
1982 The Dutch Classical Garden and Andre
Mollet. Journal of Garden History 2(1):'
25-40.

Hunt, John Dixon
1990 "But who does not know what a Dutch
garden is?": The Dutch Garden in the
English Imagination. in 
The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century 
Dunbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 
Washington, DC

Hunt, John Dixon, and Erik de Jong, eds.
1988 The Anglo-Dutch Garden in the Age of William and Mary. 
Journal of Garden History 8(2, 3), April-September 
Taylor & Francis, London.

Jellicoe, Geoffrey, and Susan Jellicoe, eds.
1986 The Oxford' Companion to Gardens. Oxford' "
University Press, New York.

Kuyper, W.
1980 Dutch Classicist Architecture. Delft
University Press, Delft.

Lauremberg, Peter.
1631 Horticu/tura, libris II.comprehensa; huic
nostro coe/o & solo accommodata; regulis,
observationibus, experiment is, & figuris navis
instructa: In qua quicquid ad liortum proficue
colendum, et eleganter instruendum facit,
explicatur. Matthaus Merian, Frankfurt am
Main, Germany

Nylandt, Peter
1682 De Nederlandtse herbarius of kruydt-boeck.
Reprint, 1976. Interbook International,
Schiedain, the Netherlands.

1683 De medicijn-winckel, of ervaren huys-houder.
Included in Part 3 of Het vermakdyck landtleven.
Gysbert de Groot, Amsterdam.

Schama, Simon
1987 The Embarrassment of Riches: An
Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden
Age. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Temple, Sir Richard Carnac, ed.
1925 The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and
Asia: 1608-1647. Volume IV of Travels in
Europe: 1639-1647. Hakluyt Society,
London.

Van de Passe, Crispin
1928 Hortus Floridus: The First book contayninge a
very lively and true Description of the Flowers
of the Spring. Reprint of ca. 1614 English
translation. The Cresset Press, London.

Van der Groen, Jan
1669 Le jardinier hollandois/der niederlandische
gartner. Marcus Doornick, Amsterdam.

1670
Den Nederlandtsen Hovenier. Marcus
Doornick, Amsterdam.

1683
Den Nederlandtsen Hovenier. Part I of Het
7Jermllkelijck landt-leven. Gysbcrt de Groot,

Amsterdam.

1500s Time to Wash the Sheep! Work for Peasants - A Spectator Sport for Elites

Attr to Jacob Grimmer1526-1590 a Flemish landscape painter in Antwerp  Sheep Dipping

In the style of Jacob Grimmer (Dutch, 1525-1590) Landscape with a Picnic and Spring Sheep-Dipping at the National Trust, Westwood Manor. Sheep washing often was not popular with the men working in the water, although apparently the activity was greatly enjoyed by spectators who eagerly anticipated accidental dunkings or watery chases.

For many centuries sheep have been washed in the spring & early summer, before shearing, to clean the fleece of the dirt, grit & grease which inevitably build up over the winter months. It should not be confused with the chemical sheep dipping which is a more recent practice, begun in the 19C, aimed at controlling parasitic infestation. 

Sheep washing usually involved driving the flock through a fenced off section of running water. Many localities had a traditional site for sheep washing, most were on local rivers or pools, but some villages used the mill pond or even a suitable stretch of a seaside beach. The men would spend hours waist high in cold water & each animal had to be totally immersed & scrubbed. 

Jacob Grimmer (Dutch, 1525-6-1590) Landscape with Spring Sheep-Dipping Detail A woman helps wash the sheep in the water.

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Sheep Washing. A woman out of the pond holds a sheep.

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619) Four Seasons - Spring Sheep Dipping. Women help tend the sheep on the side of the water.

Grapes to Wine

Gathering Grapes for Wine September 1793

18C Growing Grapes - No Hint of Wine

1781 The Twelve Months print Carington Bowles (Published by) Robert Dighton (After) Richard Earlom (Print made by) London. Gathering the grapes.

18C Growing Grapes - No Hint of Wine

1767  Woman with Grapes  Printed for Robert Sayer, London. 

18C Growing Grapes - No Hint of Wine

1712 Louis de Boullogne (After) Nicolas Chateau (Print made by) Nicolas Chateau (Published by) 1712 Paris

18C Growing Grapes - No Hint of Wine

1750s Autumn; print; Charles Corbutt (Print made by); Robert Pyle (After); Robert Sayer (Published by); 1748-1760; London

1600s Grapes to Wine

 1690 Studio of David Teniers the Younger (Flemish artist, 1610–1690) Vintner

1600s Grapes to Wine

Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673, fol. 103v Picking & Treading Grapes

1640 Grapes to Wine

Wine & Spirits Seller by David Teniers (II), c 1640