EL MAÍZ EN ITALIA, SIGLOS XVI-XIX: PRECIOS, MERCADOS Y HACIENDAS AGRÍCOLAS (DOS CASOS DE ESTUDIO: LOMBARDÍA Y UMBRÍA)

This study aims to present some key aspects to understand the introduction and expansion of corn in Lombardy and Umbria between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Choosing as a case study two emblematic regions concerning the history of corn in Italy throughout the Modern Age, the work uses unpublished archival material to verify the validity of a series of research tracks. First, the chronology of the introduction of a new crop, a historical process that undoubtedly involved the coining of new words (Formentone, Granturco) to designate an unknown food until the second half of the 16th century. We will see the routes followed in Italy by the "corn revolution", calling the cause played by the great land owners. Equally another subject of great interest are the changes that the corn implied in the productive structure, while the consumption of corn modified the urban and rural markets, favoring the development of specialized haciendas and merchants. From this point of view, a central aspect is the position of corn in the formation of the cereal market. Therefore, the research presents a series of statistical data that demonstrate the validity of the thesis on the integration of commercial circuits and what is more emblematic, the perfect correlation of prices. The evolution of prices for both wheat and corn indicate the integration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of large commercial spaces