GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CITRUS FAMILY 



tbe orangeries oi' the Farnese family at Parma, j 

 of tbe Cardinals Xantes, Aldobrandini, and Pio, j 

 at Rome, of the Elector Palatin at Heidelberg, ! 

 (Olfv. de Ser., p. 633) of Louis Thirteenth; in I 

 France; .and even at Ghent, in Belgium, that of | 

 M. de Hellibusi, who imported plants from j 

 Genoa, and carried his establishment to the last \ 

 degree of magnificence. (See Ferraris, p. 150, 

 where he describes the orangery of M. de Helli- 

 busi at Ghent, and that of Louis Thirteenth at 

 Paris. The latter has been replaced by that of 

 Versailles, of which the magnificence renders it 

 perhaps the finest monument of this kind to be 

 found in Europe.) 



We now see orangeries in all the civilized 

 parts of Europe, it being an embellishment ne- 

 cessary to all country-seats nnd houses of ploas- 



AKT. IV. Nature of the Orange Tree among the 

 Arabs and Europeans of Hie Middle Ages 

 Sweet Orange Unknown at this Epoch Observa- 

 tions upon the Native Country of the Different 

 Species of Citrus, and their Transmigration. 



The investigations of which we have just 

 given the result would seem to fix definitely the 

 history o^ the orange tree. But how much was 

 I surpYised when an examination of all the facts 

 I have gathered upon this subject compelled me 

 to see that the tree in question, from the twelfth 

 to the fourteenth century, was n6t the o range of 

 sweet fruit, but the bigarade \ ' \ 



This observation, of which I shall presently 

 give proofs, awakened in my mind numberless 

 suspicions and conjectures, forcing me to re- 

 newed observations and examinations, referring 

 always to the theory of species and their im- 

 provement by culture. 



1 at first suspected that the bigarade tree might 

 be the wild stock of the orange, which the Arabs, 

 having propagated by seed, had afterwards al- 

 lowed to become debased and to return to its 

 natural state. 



But, in proportion as I have obtained results 

 by my own experiments, my conjectures have 

 been changed ; and I find myself forced to seek 

 in historical facts the solution of this problem. 



These researches, indeed, have brought me to 

 results which agree perfectly with physiological 

 principles drawn from my experiments ; and I j 

 have had the satisfaction of seeing these two 

 parts of my work leaning the one upon the 

 other reciprocally, and mutually lending them- 

 selves to explain phenomena which they seem 

 to present. 



I shall now begin to show the data which have 

 convinced me that the orange tree carried by 

 Arabs into Palestine, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, 

 thence to Sicily, to Liguria, and to Provence, 

 was only the bigarade or sour-orange tree. 



These proofs, already very numerous before 

 my arrival in Paris, have been greatly strength- 

 ened by new observations, for which I am in- 

 debted to the politeness of M. de Sacy. 



The Arabs carried the lemon and orange trees 

 first into Arabia, and from that countiy they 

 propagated them in places where they had 

 established their dominion. But the most an- 

 cient agricultural monuments remaining to us of 



this conquering people present only bitter or- 

 anges. 



The Alcazar of Seville is, perhaps, the oldest 

 of those magnificent palaces preserved with so 

 much care by the Spaniards as an honorable 

 witness to the glories and dangers of their ances- 

 tors. It dates from the twelfth century ; and an 

 Arabic inscription, now to be seen upon one of 

 its portals, and of which M. Bruna has given me 

 a translation, fixes the date of its construction as 

 the year 1181. That which remains the most 

 intact of this antique monument is a large orange 

 grove at the end of the garden. This grove is. 

 stocked with trees, showing extreme old age, and * 

 all are of sour fruit. The territory abound Seville, 

 though covered with orange trees, presents this 

 species only in this grove, and can show no other 

 plantation of so great age. We see, however, 

 many orange gardens whose trees are very old. 

 There is an exact description of such in the Voy- 

 age of M. Navagero, Venetian ambassador to 

 Charles V., printed in 1523. 



Doubtless the Caliphs of Spain, who were very 

 particular in the embellishment of their gardens, 

 would have preferred to this species the sweet 

 orange, had it been known when this grove was 

 planted. 



Africa, the first theatre of Mo&rish conquests, 

 exhibits also only this species, in places where it 

 has been acclimated since a very remote time. 



Witness the woods of orange trees remarked 

 by Jean Leon, near Cano, south of Atlas, the 

 only ones he found in these regions, " and which," 

 said he, " bear sour fruit." 



Witness the oranges found in Ethiopia by the 

 Portuguese when, they passed into India, and 

 which were sour ; also" as Alvarez teaches us in 

 his narration of the voyage he made to Ethiopia 

 in 1520 ; and Ferraris,* too, who relies upon the 

 authority of the relations by missionaries. In 

 Ethiopia solo, cultu propemodum nullo, nasdpoma 

 citrea rara ea quidem, sed visendw inagnitudini* 

 et pr&cipui saporis ; aurantia vero acri tantum 

 saporiarguta uberius provemre. FEK., p. 47. 



But we have testimony still more precise and 

 determined, in Arabian works where this plant 

 is mentioned. 



The Damascene (Abd-ulfeda) and Avicenna 

 speak of the orange only as a sour fruit, of which 



may be made syrups. Acetositatis citri et 



acetositatis citranguli. 



Ebn-Beitar, in his dictionary of simple reme- 

 dies, makes of this fruit a description agreeing 

 perfectly with what is said of it by those two 

 writers just referred to. He says, "the orange 

 tree is well known ; its leaf is smooth, and of a 

 deep green ; the fruit is round, and the interior 

 encloses a sour juice similar to that of the citron. 

 The tree resembles strongly the citron tree ; its 

 flower is white and of a sweet odor." (Arabian 

 MSS., No. 172.) 



Massoudi, who is quoted by M. de Sacy in the 

 notes to his translation of Abd-Allatif, distin- 

 guishes the fruit from the citron only by its form, 

 and calls it citron rond. And Ebn-Al Awam, in 

 his agricultural book, says that the fruit of the 

 orange tree is round, and that its juice has the 

 acidity of the citron, from which it conies. 

 (Spanish translation, bk 1, p. 320.) But it is not 

 only in Arabia, in Africa, and in Spain, that the 

 orange was known as a sour fruit. Italy pre- 



