«L'empire de l'habitude»: saggezza popolare e pensiero agronomico nel Parmense tra Sette e Ottocenro (The empire de l'habitude: popular wisdom and agronomical thought in the territory of Parma between the eighteenth and the nineteenth century)

The essay deals with the agronomical thought in the Parmesan States in the transition period between the decline of the Ducal Age and the Restoration. It examines not only the cultivation and managerial aspects but, more in general, the forma mentis that dominates the rural world. It is remarkable that, for most of the nineteenth century, the spread of agronomical knowledge is assigned to, and condensed in, simple and recurring agronomical rules – in primis sayings – in a peculiar union between religiousness and superstition that tends to perpetuate itself in the eternal cycle of the nature. The early associational experiences (agrarian academies) and specialized agronomical reviews were of an ephemeral character. Likewise, the experience of the first university chair of Practical Reasoned Agriculture at the University of Parma, held by Giuseppe Gialdi, has an ephemeral character. Substantially, the circulation of agronomical treatises was limited and elitist; it was similar to a reduced oasis in a traditional society still based on empiricism and orality.