L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 6 STEFANO DE CAROLIS T he G reeks and the Romans used precious olive oil especially to care for their bodies, through the prepara- tion of numerous healing balms and pomades. With the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Bar- baric invasions, the olive tree lost that strong economic impor- tance it had acquired through the previous centuries. In the 12th century, German abbess and nat- uralist Hildegard von Bingen wrote: "the oil extracted from the olive isn't very useful if ingested, as it causes nausea and makes food heavy. It is however useful as a medicine." In the following centuries, however, after decades of pro- found commercial crisis, olive oil production improved thanks to the work and the dedication of monastic orders like the Bene- dictines, the Cistercians and the Basileans, who brought olive- based economy to a new blos- soming. Indeed, it was thanks to these religious orders that large exten- sions of land in Puglia, and in the rest of the South, were turned into olive orchards, assigned to farmers through concession con- tracts ad laborandum. Benedic- tine monks had been the most active, especially for liturgical reasons, in keeping alive the South's olive oil making tradi- tion following their rule of ora et labora. From that moment on, olive growing increased in the South of Italy and olive oil became one of its most prominent commer- cial products, able to support the area's economic rebirth. S o much so that, opportunistically, feudal lords imposed their ease- ment entitlements through w hich, for ins tance, they forbade the creation of private olive mill presses, imposing the use of their own. A mong the many abus es , vexations and iniquitous fees imposed by feudal lords, there was also that of paying out a tenth of the olive harvest to their coffers, the so called decima del- l'olio, a tax which added up to thos e impos ed on almonds , grapes, wheat and legumes har- vesting. Around the mid 1500s, oil commerce in P uglia w as s o important that De Riviera, the Spanish Viceroy, ordered the construction of a road connect- ing Naples to the region, with the aim of facilitating its trans- port and commerce. In those years, one salma (350 liters ) of olive oil w as worth about 14 ducati, a ducato being worth about 44 modern euro. In the 17th century, under Spanish rule, taxes on oil pro- duction were increased and short term contracts on olive orchards were imposed. In the 18th centu- ry, however, olive oil production took up again, thanks to the development of the free market and a 40 year long tax exemp- tion on olive orchards. In 1830, Pope Pius VII guar- anteed, for 18 months, a finan- cial prize for each olive tree planted and tended to in the region. The millennial art of turning olives in oil continued through the centuries in ancient oil mills known as trappeti. They were numerous in Bari and its province. They were all built in local stone and formed by one or more areas called lamioni; usual- ly, they were located near town walls, their typical architecture showing barrel vault ceilings and stone pitched roofs called cum- merse or pignon. Near the trappeto, other work- ing areas could be found, like fireplaces, stables, posture - large oil containers - and under- ground storage rooms used keep olives, called cammini. Once picked, collected and placed in hemp sacks, olives were stocked in trappeti before being pressed. After the pressing phase, carried out with large stone wheels, workers would take the resulting olive paste to fill fiscoli, made in coconut or hemp by skilled rope makers and fiscolai. Once filled, fiscoli were piled one upon the other and placed on the press' stone (cuenze), to be pressed again. This phase was carried out by pushing a large wooden pole know n as bar das cia w hich w ould move the core of the press. The resulting liquid was then poured into containers to decant. Once the oil rose up to the liq- uid's surface, the "steersman," nocchiere or chenzjire, would collect it and "cut" it. This cru- cial and difficult operation was carried our with a large metal plate, with a slightly conical bot- tom and a handle, the patene. Water, heavier than oil, was gathered in other containers, so that the procedure could be repeated. The word chenzjire or nag- ghjire (our nocchiere) comes from the Greek naùkleros, or ship master: in the trappeto he w as the undis cus s ed leader, whom no one could contradict. The nagghjir e w as a highly s killed profes s ional figure, whose mastery was proven by how much oil he could collect from the surface of vegetation water. The ancient dialectal term nagghjire was most likely bor- rowed from maritime lingo, as it happened w ith many other expressions used by trappetari in Puglia. Indeed, they considered their extraordinary working envi- ronment as a ship, with its own crew and sea-inspired terminolo- gy: steersman, second steersman, crew, ship boy, palammare and main mast. This brief historical excursus must mention also the decisive role of Puglia in olives and olive oil production throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The city of Andria alone, can well be con- sidered - and rightly so - the cap- ital of olive oil, with its 14.000 tonnes of oil produced, 12.000 hectares of land dedicated to olive coltures, 50% of the whole BAT region olives' production, 9% of Puglia's, 4% of Italy's and 3 million olive trees. The ancient trappeti s till active in the city of Andria today are about 20, against the 70 still functioning jus t about tw o decades ago. In the Middle Ages, feudal lords imposed easement entitlements to forbid the creation of private olive mill presses Interestingly enough, trappeti lingo belongs to that of the sailors and the sea: that's why its leader is known as the steersman A steersman at the helm of a ship called "trappeto" "Let's value and protect our ancient trappeti, true sanctuaries of Puglia industrial archaeology..." LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE

• Cover