Stealing the Golden Apples was the goal of Hercules eleventh labor. He identifies oranges as the modern equivalent of the Golden Apples grown in the mythical Garden of the Hesperides. Pontano’s poem combines agricultural information with mythical tales about the citrus botanical genus. In his didactic poem, The Garden of the Hesperides, or the Cultivation of Orange Trees, composed in Naples in 1500, Giovanni Pontano provides a clever explanation for the presence of orange trees on Italian shores. “Through Hercules, oranges became important objects of exchange, as Pontano has the hero bring the fruits to Italy to secure the gift of immortality.” Equating oranges with the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, Ferrari is recalling a well-known and accepted conceit for the fruit that had been established over one hundred years earlier. As the title suggests, the main theme of his book was the comparison of the mythical garden of the Hesperides with the contemporary flowering of the Italian garden during the “Golden Age” of the Barberini reign.Īll over the Italian peninsula architects, sculptors, painters, poets, historians and humanist scholars were commissioned to concoct a magnificent image for their powerful patrons. Rare plants from America, Asia, and Africa were all cultivated, showcased and named at this important Roman garden. The famed Barberini garden displayed the newly found plants from the most recent voyages of trade and discovery. Horticultural Advisor to the Papal family, Ferrari was appointed in the late 1630’s to manage the newly formed garden at the Barberini Palace in Rome. Hand-colored engraving, Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides (1646). He enlisted the best artists of the day to illustrate the text in exacting detail.įigure 1: “Aurantium Flore Duplici” or double-flowered orange, Ferrari was the first scientist dedicated to a complete taxonomic study of citrus fruit varieties, describing their origins, and documenting cultivation and medicinal uses. One of the most splendid, scientifically precise and decorative botanical works of 17th century Europe is Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Hesperides, Sive, De Malorum Aureorum Cultura, published in Rome in 1646 (Figure 1). Ancient scholars believed oranges to be the “Golden Apples” of immortality stolen by Hercules from the Garden of Hesperides, the fruit sacred to Venus– goddess of love. It wasn’t until the 19 th century that oranges reached the tables of the middle class, and later still, that they became an accessible fruit of the community and the most popular cultivated fruit in the world. Ĭoveted by the highest ranks of society, orange fruits became such a sign of opulence in the Renaissance that the quantity of oranges appearing on the banquet table measured the importance of the guests, as well as the wealth of the host. Exotic, rare, and expensive, oranges were a luxury item, the fruit of emperors and kings. The actual origin of the orange fruit is ambiguous and elusive with a long but often hidden history behind it.
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