Parabiago 3.0

Virgil path 

At the beginning of Imperial Age the viticolture was largely widespread and the reduction of the other coltures (such as cereals), induced Domiziano to forbid the creation of new vineyards and to impose to explant half of those of the Roman provinciae.
The recovery of a Roman wine press in Corbetta, let us think about the diffusion of the viticolture in the West area of Milan.
The Roman legionaries, during the conquests, had the order to plant vineyards and to teach the local populations the enologic techniques. So, the cultivation of vine spread in a little time in every territory conquested by Rome: in France, Spain; Germany, Great Britain and North Africa.
In Po Valley, with the dissolution of the Roman Empire, was abandoned the vine's colture in the flat and valley floor areas, while the vineyards were mantained in hill and mountain areas both in fortified villages and out of them, well-situated for the climate and well-set at the sunlight.
In XII century, in level was restarted the colture of the vines in promiscuous way with cereals, according to the use of arbustum gallicum; from XV the trees, to which were married the vines, were substituted with the mulberry, considered more profitable for the fostering of silkworm. As a result the importance of the vine grew and reached its peak in the centuries XVIII and XIX, when the majority of Alto Milanese was cultivated at cereals and vines.
In the second part of XIX century, began the vine's decline in the valley and in our territories because of devastating illnesses. Today its colture is limited to urban gardens and some rows in open land, near the fraction of Ravello of Parabiago.

  
   …Today

The vine today is not only used for the production of wine (even if it is the main use): the grapes produced can be assigned to the fresh consumption or can be used to obtain clear juices, naturally in syrup to add it to fruit cocktails, products keep in alcohol and dry grapes. The decoction of its leaves is a strong astringent, while those fresh are healing for illnesses of the skin.
Fruits – collected when they are almost ripe – have refreshing, detox, diuretic, blood-depurative, moisturize and vitaminic features.

  The double row of vines

In the park of Via Virgilio in Parabiago, where it winds Virgilian Route, in 2007 have being planted some vines' rows, "married" with the ornus. The distance among the trees and between the rows it that of the so called arbustum gallicum, in use in the Po Valley in the ancient Roman period and good described from Columella in his essay of agricolture De Re Rustica of 1st century AD. The row's orientation also follws that of the land divisions probabily made in Imperial Age , whose marks are noticed still today in the cartography of the area.