515 



GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE C1TRKS FAMILY. 



Probably it passed finally, either by complais- ; 

 knee or fraud, into special gardens, and the 

 Genoese, vvho tirst acclimated it in Ligurin, 

 have since spread it through Europe. It is still 

 from the seedsmen of Nervi that are procured 

 all the plants cultivated in the rest of Liguria, 

 in Piedmont, in Lombardy, and in France. | 

 This plant is called in the treatise Jasmin du ' 

 Oime (Oehemino del Oime) a name still preserved 

 in Tuscany. The Genoese call it gemdki, proba- 

 bly a corruption of Oime. It is impossible for 

 me to learn the origin of this name.) 



With such a taste for plants, and having so ; 

 intimate and active relations with Asia, they 

 saw, doubtless, the sweet-fruiled orange tree; 

 and the abundance, as well as superiority of its 

 fruit, would arouse the desire to enrich with it. 

 the European gardens. It was, surely, no longer 

 necessary to penetrate into China or the archi- 

 pelago of Sooloo to find it. It is probable that 

 this plant was spread over India by reason of 

 the progress there made in agriculture and the 

 arts. This progress was, necessarily, the effect 

 of the trade which commerce with Europe had 

 opened to the industry of this country. 



Passed, from country to country, the sweet 

 orange would take the place of the bigarade in 

 those fine climates where that had been first 

 transported, and would offer its delicious fruit to 

 the people of Hindostan, the fertile valleys of 

 Persia, Hyrcania, and perhaps of Syria. 



From these places, already better known, the 

 Europeans would transport it to the southern 

 portions of the Occident. 



The analogy existing between the sweet orange 

 and bigarade, might assure these navigators of 

 the possibility of naturalizing it in their native 

 country ; while the superior quality of its fruit 

 would tempt their appetites, as well as their de- 

 sire of gain. 



But who among these adventurers was in best 

 condition to project and execute this enterprise? 



The Genoese and the Venetians, among Euro- 

 peans, had then the closest relations with those 

 countries, and the flourishing state of their ma- 

 rine offered more facility lor executing this 

 transport. But the Venetians had not, in their 

 lagoons, a climate suited to the culture of the 

 agrumi. They could not, therefore, see in this 

 fruit an object of speculation, whilst, on the con- 

 trary, the Genoese inhabited a district already 

 covered with these trees, whose fruit had become 

 a very important article of trade, employing 

 their agriculture, and feeding their manufactur- 

 ing and commercial industry. (The Genoese 

 found in the culture of the agrumi a source of 

 industry and gain. They encouraged agriculture 

 by extending the consumption of its products, 

 nourishing their commerce by increasing the 

 trade in sugar, which they brought directly from 

 Asia, and sustained their confectioners, who 

 furnished then the greater part of Europe.) 



The Venetians, it is true, had obtained more 

 indulgence and favor in the marts of Egypt, and 

 the influence with the Sultans that their gold, 

 .their wares, and their marine had given them, 

 made them almost masters of the Red sea trade. 



The Genoese, who were driven off by the jeal- 

 ousy of these rivals, made use of scarcely any 

 other route than that of the Black sea and the 

 Persian gulf. But it is necessary to observe that 



this last is the only road by which the plants of 

 India are carried to the coasts of the Mediterra- 

 nean. It presents more facilities for that gradual 

 progression of culture, which is the easy and 

 natural menus for naturalizing in a country the 

 plants of a foreign clime, and the only praeti 

 cal way among people little; civilized, and who 

 followed bnt the direct impulses of want. 



This route was not intersected by long inter- 

 vals of desert or of sea obstacles which always 

 arrest the passage of vegetation and arts but it 

 offered, on the contrary, a nearly continuous 

 chain of people and fertile lands, of which the 

 soft and moist climate assisted, beyond calcula- 

 lation, the progress of agriculture. 



In fact it was by this route that the bigarade 

 tree passed from India into Egypt. 



Massondi teaches us that tins tree had begun 

 to be cultivated in Oman, whence it went after- 

 wards to Bassorah, thence to Irak and into Sy- 

 ria. The spaces separating these districts at that 

 time offered no great difficulties. Oman, situated 

 opposite the coast of Hindostan, nearly touched 

 Irak by the chain of Arabian mountains, which 

 are very fertile, and it is not far removed from 

 Bassorah, on the seacoast. Nothing easier than 

 to transport upon a vessel, in a short passage, a 

 plant so long-lived, and which sustains itself, 

 perhaps, more than any other without injury, 

 when out of the earth. 



Acclimated at Bassorah, the bigarade had 

 nothing worse to cross than very fertile regions, 

 until arrived in Syria, while the fondness of the 

 Arabs of that day for agriculture and for flowers 

 would accelerate its growth. 



By this route, also, the orange tree of sweet 

 fruit made its passage into Syria. 



Europeans frequented then the markets of this 

 eastern country. Florentines, Pisans, Venetians, 

 Sicilians, Spaniards, and French went there con- 

 tinually as traders and as pilgrims; but the Ge- 

 noese alone, by their commercial and geographi- 

 cal position, could best favor this enterprise. 

 Masters of many isles in the archipelago, of Sar- 

 dinia, and of Corsica, they had a sort of chain 

 of establishments, or colonies, which connected 

 their country to Syria, and they could more 

 easily than any others execute the transport of 

 plants, even the most delicate. 



Every one knows to what a point of prosperity 

 were carried the marine and commerce^!' Genoa, 

 from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. 1 

 shall observe solely that it was to the coast 

 of Syria that this industrious people directed 

 chiefly their vessels and their activity. 



The Genoese fleets frequented those passages 

 long before the Crusades (see voyage of Ingul- 

 phus, Abbot of Croyland, reported by Baronius 

 in 1064, bk. 2, p. 353), and during those famous 

 expeditions it was the Genoese who furnished to 

 the Crusaders the war vessels, the transports, the 

 instruments, the artists for the construction of 

 machines of war, and the food for the soldiers 

 (JUSTIN, p. 28, PAUL KMILTS, GUGLIELME DK 

 VITHY, and CAFFAR). 



From 1097 to 1108 they sent into Syriy 337 

 galleys, and they had so great influence in the 

 success of the Crusaders that Baldwin accorded 

 to them the famous privilege of 1105, the expres- 

 sions of which deserve record : "Primi (Oemien- 

 ses) in e.rercitu Francorum venientes viriliter prafue- 



