4.8 



GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CITRUS FAMILY. 



The use of it as seasoning for food, brought 

 from Palestine to Liguria, to Provence, and to 

 Sicily, penetrated to the interior of Italy and 

 France. 



The taste for confections was propagated in 

 Europe vvitli the introduction of sugar, and this 

 delicate food became at once a necessary article 

 to men in easy circumstances, and a luxury upon 

 all tables.* It was, above all, as confections, 

 that the Agruuii entered into commerce ; and we 

 see by the records of Savona that they were sent 

 into cold parts of Italy, where people were very 

 greedy for them. 



ful planks, yet little by little became very scarce, and it 

 was said that this cutting tlie wood had thinned these trees 

 upon Mount Ancorarius, and that they only grew at the 

 base of Mount Atlas. About this time were brought the 

 first citrons from Asia to Koine. The Komans had no 

 proper name for these fruits, while they had one belong- 

 ing to the tree which furnished the tables. They found that 

 even the Greeks only knew these fruits by a paraphrase in- 

 dicating the country whence they came. Nothing more 

 natural than from esteem to give to them the name of a 

 tree of which they were beginning to have only a remem- 

 brance, and whose rarity and price seemed to ally it to the 

 newly-imported fruit. 



This is founded only on probabilities, but is, neverthe- 

 less, more admissible than the conjectures of the etymolo- 

 gists. Those persons desirous to know these should con- 

 sult Macrobe, in the third book of Saturnales, chapter 19; 

 Athenee, book 3; Phanias Eresius, Isidorus, Ferraris, the 

 Lexicons, and the Etymolog. Magn. 



It will suffice here to observe that the word citrum has 

 also been given by the Latins to a kind of gourd, probably 

 on account of its clear, yellow color, which distinguishes 

 it. From this word has come citrullit*, whence probably 

 has been derived titrouille, Which in France is given to a 

 kind of gourd. We have but to consult Apicius, who gives 

 the mode of seasoning it, in his treatise upon cooking. 



The words ciM-nw and citrina, as epithets, were in use 

 for a great number of fruits, after they had been adopted 

 to express the clear, yellow color peculiar to the citron. 

 (Pliny, Nat. Hist.) The etymology of the words Union and 

 aurantium has been equally sought after in the Greek and 

 Latin languages. 



Some have traced back the word linwn to a Greek word 

 for meadow or prairie, because of the analogy thought to 

 exist between the lemon tree and a meadow in their con- 

 tinued verdure. 



The second appears to be formed of the word aitra.tin. and 

 some have thought aurantvnti was but a corruption of 

 inctiutn auratum, which has been regarded as a synonym of 

 the malum hespe-ridum of the ancients. 



All these views have been displayed by a great number 

 of authors, chiefly by Ferraris, in his Hesperides: by Sau- 

 maise, in his Notes upon Solinus, p. 955; by Octave Ferrari, 

 in his Orujines Linguce Italics ; by Menage, in his Etymo- 

 logical Dictionary of the French language; and by the au- 

 thors of the Dictionary of Trevoux. 



The facts that we have collected upon the history of these 

 plants convince us that these names belong neither to the 

 Greek or Latin tongues. These, as well as all modern lan- 

 guages, received them from the Arabians, who took them 

 From the Malay and Hindoo. It is, in truth, under the names 

 of lemmn and naregan, that these trees are to-day known in 

 India. We are assured of this by all travellers and bot- 

 anists who have described the plants of that country, bui 

 chiefly by Gilchrist, a learned Englishman, who, in his Dic- 

 tionary of English-Hindoo, printed at Calcutta, points out 

 the word narcndj as belonging to the Hindostanee. 



It was, then, from the languages of India that they must 

 have passed into the Persian and Arabic, where they were 

 modified according to the genius of pronunciation. 



Those names which by their form must have originated 

 in the Arab tongue, have an uncertain orthography, vary- 

 ing in different authors of that nation. From the Arabic 

 they passed into our modern languages, submitting to some 

 alterations, Latinized and Grecianized by the writers in 

 these two tongues. Thus, of narendj has been made the 

 Latin word airangl, afterwards changed to arangi, aran- 

 gium, arantium, aurantium. Thus, too, have the French 

 formed their words, arangi, airange, orenge, orange ; the 

 Italians the words arangio, aranzo, naranzo, omticio. 

 cjxdtiie r^r;-,iiiri3fl tho word narancca. Tho word lymmtn 

 hjiibeen ifx'':en wl. i '"lie change. 



-i.e ys provided 



Tor tjs gre. , r \ . jre, in tif.e' thirteenth cen- 



tury, OTIC o tive axo*^ <ugu!y-prized ov the articles of luxu- 



After having cultivated these species for the 

 use made of their fruits, they soon cultivated 

 them as ornaments for the gardens. 



The monks began to fill with these trees tht: 

 courts of their monasteries, in climates suited to 

 their continual growth, and soon one found no 

 convent not surrounded by them. Indeed, the 

 courts and gardens of these houses show us now 

 trees of great age ; and it is said that the old tree, 

 of which we see now a rejeton in the court of 

 the convent of St. Sabina, at Rome, was planted 

 by St. Dominic, about the year 1200.* 



This fact has no other foundation than tradi- 

 tion ; but this tradition, preserved for many 

 centuries, not only among the monks of the con- 

 vent, but also among the clergy or Rome, is re- 

 ported by Angustin Gallo, who, in 1559, speaks 

 of this orange as a tree existing since time im- 

 memorial. 



If we refuse to attribute its planting to St. 

 Dominic, we must at least refer it to a period 

 soon after, that is, to the end of the thirteenth 

 century, at the latest. 



Nicolas Specialis, in the passage cited on an. 

 other page, in describing the havoc made by the 

 besiegers in the suburbs of Palermo, regrets the 

 destruction of oranyert, or trees of sour apples 

 (po mmes at'yreti), which he regards as rare plants, 

 embellishing the pleasure-house of Cubba. 



Blondus Flavius. a writer of the middle of the 

 following century, speaks of the orange on the 

 coast of Amalfi (a city of Naples, 7>.) as a new 

 plant, which as yet had no name in scientific 

 language (Blond. Flav., Ital. Illust., p. 420), and 

 he extols the valleys of Rapallo fcnd San Remo, 

 in Liguria, for the culture of the citrus, a rare 



ry. Jean Musso, who, in 1388, wrote a history of pleasure- 

 houses, in describing the manners of his time, says they 

 commenced dinner with Confectum znehari, and that most 

 men in easy circumstances provided it as a thing in com- 

 mon use: Tenent bonas confectiones in. doinibus cofwm elf 

 ziK'horo <-f <!< 'iii< lie. This, is confirmed by all the authors 

 of that period; and we find in the records of Savona, in 

 1468, the Commune sent as a present to its ambassador at 

 Milan, citrons and lemons. .I'ntfr'ticiih'iix minnix \f<-ffiol<(- 

 // a in videlicet limoidbvs c&nfectls et elfin*. Liv. d'admin. 



* The orange tree that one sees in the court of the con- 

 vent of St. Sabina. atjKome, is doubtless of a very ancient 

 date. An old tradition says that it was planted by St. 

 Dominic. This was a well-established opinion in 1530, 

 and Augustine Gallb, who wrote about that time, speaks 

 of it as a fact very sure. The Father Ferraris saw and de- 

 scribed this tree in KiOO. and Tanara, about forty years 

 later, did the same. 



This plant exists to-day, and grows in a. kind of nook or 

 hollow, whose locality agrees precisely with that described 

 by Ferraris. It was carefully tended by the monks of St. 

 Dominic, who regarded it as planted by their founder, and 

 distributed its fruit to the sick as miraculous. There was 

 also a rule among the monks to present of it to the cain 

 dinals and Pope, when they should come on Ash- Wed- 

 nesday to visit this church. -vj 



The actual condition of this tree is, however, too vigor- 

 ous to admit of our thinking this was always the same 

 stem. It is to be supposed that the present orange tree is 

 but a sprout from the old plant, which, no doubt!, was cut 

 off in the frost of 1709. What helps this conjecture is the 

 fact that in the time of Ferraris the tree was in a state of 

 extreme old age-. It is true this writer said it had at its 

 foot a sprout or re jeton, which promised its renewal, but 

 this is not that sprout, for it must have submitted to the 

 frost of which we have spoken. 



The present stem has a diameter of ten inches. Jt is di- 

 vided into two branches, well covered, which, in 180(5, ac- 

 cording to the assertions of the monks, yielded 2,000 

 oranges. 



These fruits have a sour juice, and differ in no way from 

 our bigarades. Indeed, at Koine, they are called nitkut fjni>- 

 fortL 



