Description

At the beginning of the Imperial Age of ancient Rome (first century AD), the wine was very extended and the consequent reduction of other crops (such as cereals), led Domitian to prohibit the creation of new vineyards and imposing of harvesting the middle of the vineyards existing in the Roman Provinciae.

The Roman legionary, during the conquest, had the delivery of plant vineyards and to teach the indigenous peoples of the technique of vine culture and the culture of making wine.

So, The cultivation of the vine soon spread in all the territories conquered by Romans in France, Spain, Germany, Great Britain and North Africa.

The importance that acquired the cultivation was so critical that Virgil, in the second book of the Georgics, dedicated to the screw as many as 160 verses.

Collibus an plano melius sit ponere vitem,
quaere prius. si pinguis agros metabere campi,
densa sere (in denso non segnior ubere Bacchus);
sin tumulis accliue solum collisque supinos,
indulge ordinibus

Se in collina o in piano sia meglio porre la vite, è il tuo primo
problema. Se assegnerai alle viti campi di una pianura grassa,
piantale fitte: quando la piantagione è fitta, Bacco non è meno
solerte a produrre. Se hai un terreno accidentato di rialzi
e colline dal lieve pendio, dà più spazio ai filari

Georgiche II, 273-277

In Gaul (modern Po valley) the vines were cultivated according to the tradition of the local people, the Celts. It had grown placed against the maple trees in particular that formed rows that stayed around the fields. This cultivation was called by the Romans "Arbustum gallicum."

In the Po Valley, with the dissolution of the Roman Empire, was abandoned vine cultivation in the plains and valleys, while the vineyards were kept of the hilly and mountainous areas both within and outside the fortified villages, in areas well placed climatically and well exposed to sunlight.

By the twelfth century, in valley restarted the cultivation of vines in mixed cultivation with cereals according to the use of “arbustum gallicum”; trees from the fifteenth century, who had been married the vines were replaced with the mulberry tree, which is considered more profitable for the breeding of silkworms. Following, the importance of the vine grew and reached its peak in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when much of Alto Milanese was cultivated with cereals and vines.

By the second half of the nineteenth century, began the decline of vine in the valleys and in our territories because of devastating diseases. Today, its cultivation is limited to urban gardens and a few rows in the open field, in the hamlet of Ravello Parabiago.

In the park of Via Virgilio in Parabiago, where the Virgilian Route winds, in 2007 it was placed at home a few rows of vines, near ornus and elm. The distance between the trees and between the rows is the same as the so-called arbustum gallicum, in use in the Po Valley in the period of ancient Rome and well described by Columella in his agricultural treatise De Re Rustica of the first century AD. The orientation of the rows also follows that of the agricultural divisions probably made in the imperial era, traces of which are still detectable in the maps of the area.

At the time of Austrian rule and in the first years following the unification of Italy, when the vine

became the highlight of the agricultural economy, the wine produced in the area and in particular in Parabiago and Busto Garolfo is reported in a number of agricultural and processed also in the works of various authors, including Carlo Porta.

Scià on martìn…
...Vorrev mettegh lì tucc in spallera
I nost scabbi, scialôs e baffiôs:
Quell bel limped e sodo d'Angera,
Quell de Casten brillant e giusôs,
Quij graziôs - de la Santa e d'Osnagh,
Quell magnifegh de Omaa, de Buragh,
Quell de Vaver posaa e sostariziôs,
Quell sinzer e piccant de Casal,
Quij cordial - de Canonega e Oren,
Quij mostôs - nett e s'cett e salaa
De Suigh, de Biassonn, de Casaa,
De Bust piccol, Buscaa, Parabiagh,
De Mombell,de Cassan, Noeuva e Dês,
De Magenta, de Arlun, de Varês,
E olter milla milion - de vin bon,
Che s'el riva a saggiaj, el PATRON,
Nol ne bev mai pu on gott forestee,
Fors el loda, chi sa, el cantinee,
E fors'anca el le ciamma, el ghe ordenna
De inviaghen quaj bonza a Vienna.