[Sca-cooks] Watermelon mentions 5

[Johnna Holloway]

We talked about the artwork found in the Villa Farnesina, (Rome) previously. Primarily the conversations in 2009 then concerned
the discovery that New World pumpkins were being depicted! "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." Back then I wrote: "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." Johnnae

Another by Janick.

Ann Bot. 2006 Feb;97(2):165-76. Epub 2005 Nov 28.
The cucurbit images (1515-1518) of the Villa Farnesina, Rome.
Janick J1, Paris HS.
Author information

Abstract
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://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803371/

********
[for more on those pumpkins, see also http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16687431
Ann Bot. 2006 Jul;98(1):41-7. Epub 2006 May 10.
First known image of Cucurbita in Europe, 1503-1508.
Paris HS1, Daunay MC, Pitrat M, Janick J.
Author information

Abstract
BACKGROUND: 
The genus Cucurbita (pumpkin, squash, gourd) is native to the Americas and diffused to other continents subsequent to the European contact in 1492. For many years, the earliest images of this genus in Europe that were known to cucurbit specialists were the two illustrations of C. pepo pumpkins that were published in Fuchs' De Historia Stirpium, 1542. Images of fruits of two Cucurbita species, drawn between 1515 and 1518, were recently discovered in the Villa Farnesina in Rome.
FINDINGS: 
An even earlier image of Cucurbita exists in the prayer book, Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne, illustrated by Jean Bourdichon in Touraine, France, between 1503 and 1508. This image, which shows a living branch bearing flowers and fruits, had not been examined and analysed by cucurbit specialists until now. The image is identified as depicting Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana. Unlike some of the fruits of Cucurbita depicted in the Villa Farnesina a decade later, this image does not depict an esculent and does not constitute evidence of early European contact with New World agriculture. Based on the descriptive, ecological and geographical accounts of C. pepo subsp. texana in the wild, the idea is considered that the image was based on an offspring of a plant found growing along the Gulf Coast of what is now the United States.]

Johnnae