Exploring the History of Tuscany’s Iconic Olive Landscape

Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, the appear­ance of Tuscan hills densely cov­ered with olive trees is a rel­a­tively recent land­scape that dates back to the sec­ond half of the 19^th cen­tury.

Not only did the num­ber of olive trees increase in many areas that may have pre­vi­ously had sparser plan­ta­tions, but olive groves also spread to recently reclaimed areas, such as the Maremma or the Valdichiana.

For cen­turies in Tuscany, lard and pork fat were the most preva­lent dietary fats for the work­ing class, espe­cially farm­ers. Conversely, olive oil had a more ​“urban” and some­what ​“lux­u­ri­ous” char­ac­ter.

Only after the 15^th cen­tury was there an eco­nom­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant long-dis­tance expor­ta­tion of Tuscan olive oil, which was already highly appre­ci­ated based on con­tem­po­rary prices.

Before the emer­gence of Tuscany, oils from Liguria, Marche, Campania and Puglia, espe­cially the lat­ter two, had started to travel across the region.

In these last two regions, as early as the first half of the 14^th cen­tury, Florentine mer­chants were sourc­ing oil for soap man­u­fac­tur­ing and wool prepa­ra­tion for cloth pro­duc­tion.

Although wild olive trees were doc­u­mented in some coastal regions, Tuscan olive cul­ti­va­tion was devel­oped as a slow burn largely dri­ven by human effort.

It was cer­tainly slower and more com­pli­cated than the spread of vines, partly due to a lower capac­ity for cli­matic and alti­tu­di­nal adap­ta­tion and greater eco­nomic dif­fi­culty in invest­ment since the olive tree only begins to reward the grower years after plant­ing.

In Italy, the first cul­ti­vated olive trees are believed to have appeared in Sicily and Magna Graecia, likely influ­enced by Greek colonists (it is note­wor­thy that the Latin and Etruscan vocab­u­lary related to olive and oil is almost entirely of Greek ori­gin).

In Etruria – a his­tor­i­cal region of Italy includ­ing present-day Tuscany, along with parts of Umbria and Lazio – oil pro­duc­tion is attested to at least from the mid­dle of the 7^th cen­tury BC.

However, olive cul­ti­va­tion did not have a sig­nif­i­cant role there, while pig farm­ing was much more impor­tant.

However, a Tuscan doc­u­ment from the early 9^th cen­tury AD, after the col­lapse of the empire and the influx of pop­u­la­tions from the north and east had con­tributed to the re-emer­gence of the use of ani­mal fats in Italian cui­sine (the dietary habits of the invaders and the expan­sion of uncul­ti­vated land and ani­mal hus­bandry were mov­ing in the same direc­tion), curi­ously and sig­nif­i­cantly referred to the tem­pus de lar­ide, the time of lard, as one of the mile­stones of the agri­cul­tural-pas­toral cal­en­dar.

Most likely, noth­ing sim­i­lar could have been said about olive oil in any cor­ner of Tuscany, not even in Versilia, the hin­ter­land of Livorno, or the hills of Lucca, which are the areas where most reports of olive cul­ti­va­tion were doc­u­mented in the early years.

However, the sit­u­a­tion began to change in Tuscany in the fol­low­ing cen­turies. The grad­ual expan­sion of olive cul­ti­va­tion can be attrib­uted to sev­eral fac­tors.

Firstly, the cli­mate and soil con­di­tions in cer­tain parts of Tuscany favored olive tree growth. The mild Mediterranean cli­mate, with its hot sum­mers, tem­per­ate win­ters, and well-drained soils, pro­vided suit­able con­di­tions for olive trees to thrive.

The cul­tural and eco­nomic exchanges with other regions of Italy and the Mediterranean also played a role in the spread of olive cul­ti­va­tion. As trade routes devel­oped and com­mu­ni­ca­tion improved, knowl­edge and tech­niques related to olive cul­ti­va­tion and oil pro­duc­tion were shared and adopted. This exchange of ideas and prac­tices con­tributed to the grad­ual expan­sion of olive groves in Tuscany.

Furthermore, the increas­ing demand for olive oil, both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally, also stim­u­lated the growth of olive cul­ti­va­tion.

Olive oil was a food sta­ple and had var­i­ous uses in indus­tries such as soap man­u­fac­tur­ing and tex­tile pro­duc­tion. The eco­nomic poten­tial of olive oil pro­duc­tion moti­vated farm­ers to invest in olive groves and increase their cul­ti­va­tion.

Over time, the land­scape of Tuscany started to trans­form as more olive trees were planted. The hill­sides that were once cov­ered with other veg­e­ta­tion or used for dif­fer­ent agri­cul­tural pur­poses grad­u­ally became adorned with the char­ac­ter­is­tic sil­very-green foliage of olive trees. The pic­turesque scenery of rolling hills dot­ted with olive groves became syn­ony­mous with the Tuscan coun­try­side we rec­og­nize today.

The cul­ti­va­tion of olive trees in Tuscany has shaped the phys­i­cal land­scape and influ­enced the region’s culi­nary tra­di­tions and cul­tural iden­tity. Tuscan cui­sine relies heav­ily on olive oil, which imparts a dis­tinct fla­vor to the local dishes.

As a result, olive oil has become an inte­gral part of Tuscan gas­tron­omy and is highly val­ued for its qual­ity and organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics.

• University of Florence
• National Association of Professional Olive Oil Tasters