This thesis analyses the chestnut cultivation and its importance in the Alpine valleys in the current Swiss region of Tessin. The research has a historical and comparative perspective to reconstruct the geographical, social and economic role of chestnuts as a resource for the inhabitants of this region during a period starting from the Middle Ages to the first half of the XX century, when the “chestnut civilization” came to an end. The approach to these topics has been conducted with a methodology mainly based on historical geography and local history. In this work the reference to different sources took on particular importance. Most of these are not published and stem mostly from local archives, as the old descriptive cadastres, jus plantandi registers, notarial acts and local statutes. The sources on the lands and their inspections, both considered very important and useful, completed in a less systemic way the range of the sources of reference. All these references are linked and crossed as in a network, while trying to understand the multiple influences that affected the regional chestnut growing, as a part of an open and unsteady system. Analysing in this way the sources, comparing them and referring to other regions’ similar studies, it has been possible to qualify and quantify the role of the chestnut between the XIV and the XX centuries and recognise its strong importance, although it is possible to claim that to the life of the inhabitants of the southern Swiss Alps the chestnut was probably less crucial than it was to the people living in the Italian mountain regions of the Apennines in the same periods.

La castanicoltura nelle valli superiori del Ticino tra il tardo medioevo e l’inizio dell’epoca contemporanea

LAURIANTI, FEDERICO
2019-05-16

Abstract

This thesis analyses the chestnut cultivation and its importance in the Alpine valleys in the current Swiss region of Tessin. The research has a historical and comparative perspective to reconstruct the geographical, social and economic role of chestnuts as a resource for the inhabitants of this region during a period starting from the Middle Ages to the first half of the XX century, when the “chestnut civilization” came to an end. The approach to these topics has been conducted with a methodology mainly based on historical geography and local history. In this work the reference to different sources took on particular importance. Most of these are not published and stem mostly from local archives, as the old descriptive cadastres, jus plantandi registers, notarial acts and local statutes. The sources on the lands and their inspections, both considered very important and useful, completed in a less systemic way the range of the sources of reference. All these references are linked and crossed as in a network, while trying to understand the multiple influences that affected the regional chestnut growing, as a part of an open and unsteady system. Analysing in this way the sources, comparing them and referring to other regions’ similar studies, it has been possible to qualify and quantify the role of the chestnut between the XIV and the XX centuries and recognise its strong importance, although it is possible to claim that to the life of the inhabitants of the southern Swiss Alps the chestnut was probably less crucial than it was to the people living in the Italian mountain regions of the Apennines in the same periods.
16-mag-2019
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11567/970742
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