[Sca-cooks] Villa Farnesina Art

[Johnna Holloway]

While answering the other post earlier today, I came across this article
on the Villa Farnesina and paintings there of maize and squashes.

http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/agricultures/past/fall2008/Features/Feature%205.html

  The first European images of maize can be found in Rome on ornate  
ceilings in the Villa Farnesina, created between 1515 and 1518 by  
Italian painter and architect Giovanni da Udina. The same ceiling  
shows a mixture of cucurbits such as melon, bottle gourd, watermelon  
and cucumber from the Old World as well as squash and gourds unique to  
the New World.

The villa is preserved as part of Rome’s rich architectural and  
artistic history, but to Jules Janick, a Purdue University  
horticulture researcher for more than 50 years, it’s part of an  
agricultural timeline. A plant geneticist and breeder, Janick has long  
been interested in horticulture history. He’s dedicated the latter  
part of his distinguished career to piecing together the history of  
horticulture crops through antiquities from the art world.

-------------

There is an academic paper on the subject.

The abstract is here. In part it reads:

  The Cucurbit Images (1515–1518) of the Villa Farnesina, Rome

JULES JANICK and HARRY S. PARIS
• Background The gorgeous frescoes organized by the master Renaissance  
painter Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520) and illustrating the heavenly  
adventures of Cupid and Psyche were painted between 1515 and 1518 to  
decorate the Roman villa (now known as the Villa Farnesina) of the  
wealthy Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466–1520). Surrounding these  
paintings are festoons of fruits, vegetables and flowers painted by  
Giovanni Martini da Udine (1487–1564), which include over 170 species  
of plants. A deconstruction and collation of the cucurbit images in  
the festoons makes it possible to evaluate the genetic diversity of  
cucurbits in Renaissance Italy 500 years ago.

• Findings The festoons contain six species of Old World cucurbits,  
Citrullus lanatus (watermelon), Cucumis melo (melon), Cucumis sativus  
(cucumber), Ecballium elaterium (squirting cucumber), Lagenaria  
siceraria (bottle gourd) and Momordica balsamina (balsam apple), and  
two or three species of New World cucurbits, Cucurbita maxima, C. pepo  
and, perhaps, C. moschata (pumpkin, squash, gourd). The images of C.  
maxima are the first illustrations of this species in Europe.

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/2/165



Interesting, eh?

Johnnae