HISTORICAL NOTES ON MANNA. 357 



the habit of quoting extensively from other authors. He died 1869. 

 about A.D. 1248. 



One fact may be held to prove that the Saracens were not 

 entirely ignorant of the production of manna in Sicily, and it 

 is this there exists a mountain near Cefalu which is called by 

 the Arabic name Gibil-manna, literally Manna-mountain, 1 Gibil-manna. 

 Other mountains in the island retain the Arabic name of gibil. 

 Whether the word manna was affixed subsequently to the 

 Saracenic occupation, or whether, as is more probable, the whole 

 name was bestowed by the Arab population in virtue of the 

 trees of the mountain yielding manna, is a point I am unable 

 to decide. 2 



In the thirteenth century, Sicily was under the dominion of 

 the Emperor Frederic II., a sovereign who appears to have been 

 very solicitous to develop its resources, as is proved by many 

 documents extant relative to the affairs of the island. Thus in 

 a letter dated A.D. 1239, he directs that certain Jews settled at 

 Palermo are to farm his date plantations at Favara, and to 

 cultivate them after their own manner. He also writes about 

 the cultivation of vineyards and the introduction of indigo and 

 henna, and of divers other plants of Barbary, not then known 

 to grow in Sicily. But so far as I can discover, there is no 

 allusion to manna. 3 



Pegolotti, an Italian who wrote a sort of mercantile hand- Pegolotti, 

 book circa A.D. 1340, has a chapter on Messina and Palermo, AlD ' 134 * 

 but does not mention manna as a production of Sicily ; yet in 

 enumerating the articles sold by the pound at the former city, 

 he names manna apparently as a foreign production, since he 

 couples it with cloves, cubebs, rhubarb, mace and long pepper. 



Further evidence of a negative sort is afforded by Giovanni 

 di Antonio da Uzzanno, who in his work called Libro di Gabelli, 

 written circa A.D. 1442, mentions the exports of Naples and of 



1 Amico, Lexicon Topographicum Siculum, iii. (1760), 242. 



8 Colonel Yule has remarked that Salmasius, in his JExercitationes Plini- 

 ance, alludes to StxeXiKov pawa as mentioned by the Medici reeentiores Greed, 

 but without specifying more particularly who they are. 



8 Historia Diplomatica Frcderiti Secundi, par J. L. A. Huillard-Brehollea, 

 t. iv. 213 ; t. v. 571. 



