The Vine
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Vitis vinifera
The Vine
Family: Vitaceae
The Vine
Family: Vitaceae
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
Consider first whether it’s better to plant the vines on the slopes
or on the level. If you’re laying out fertile fields on the plain,
plant close: Bacchus is no more sluggish in close-planted soil:
but if the soil rises in mounds and sloping hills, give the rows room
Georgics II, 273-277quaere prius. si pinguis agros metabere campi,
densa sere (in denso non segnior ubere Bacchus);
sin tumulis accliue solum collisque supinos,
indulge ordinibus
Consider first whether it’s better to plant the vines on the slopes
or on the level. If you’re laying out fertile fields on the plain,
plant close: Bacchus is no more sluggish in close-planted soil:
but if the soil rises in mounds and sloping hills, give the rows room
In the second book of Georgics Virgil writes about vine in 160 lines, because this plantation was really important in those days. In this lines the poet gives a few suggestions about the plantation: from the hoeing, to the different retaining structures, to the pruning and the protection of untamed animals; then he talks about the vine’s care. The viticulture was widely spread in northern Italy. The viticulture technique in this area, which Romans used to call arbustum gallicum, that means “ planted for the Gaul’s use”, despite it used to exist before the arrival of the Gauls (that is the Celtic population). According to what Livio wrote in his work Ab urbe condita, it was an Etruscan to deliver wine in Gaul to take revenge of the sovereign (the Lucumo) who seduced his wife. And so Gauls passed trough the Alps and occupied the territories where Etruscans used to live:
“Eam gentem traditur fama
dulcedine frugum maximeque vini nova
tum voluptate captam Alpes transisse agrosque ab Etruscis ante
cultos possessisse; et invexisse in Galliam vinum inliciendae gentis
causa Arruntem Clusinum ira corruptae uxoris ab Lucumone...”
"The tradition is that this nation, attracted by the report of the delicious fruits and especially of
the wine [a novel pleasure to them] crossed the Alps and occupied the lands formerly
cultivated by the Etruscans, and that Arruns of Clusium imported wine into Gaul in order to
allure them into Italy. His wife had been seduced by a Lucumo.."
Ab urbe condita Tito Livio V,
33tum voluptate captam Alpes transisse agrosque ab Etruscis ante
cultos possessisse; et invexisse in Galliam vinum inliciendae gentis
causa Arruntem Clusinum ira corruptae uxoris ab Lucumone...”
"The tradition is that this nation, attracted by the report of the delicious fruits and especially of
the wine [a novel pleasure to them] crossed the Alps and occupied the lands formerly
cultivated by the Etruscans, and that Arruns of Clusium imported wine into Gaul in order to
allure them into Italy. His wife had been seduced by a Lucumo.."
With the arbustum gallicum technique
the vine variety used to grow up leaning against a “living
support” that is a tree; the support used change according to the
morphologies
of the acreage: on the hill and on the dry planes they used to exploit
big and
rural maples, whereas in the low plane they used to prefer high
poplars, more
suitable for the dump environment. Between the rows, frequently, they
used to
cultivate grain. This technique has been bequeath from Gauls to Romans,
and
then from Romans to the entire Mediterranean population.
