Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

Nay, the Agro Romano itself affords equally decisive proof, that where circumstances will permit the work of cultivation to be commenced so as to be carried on at a profit, the malaria and desolation speedily disappear before the persevering efforts of human industry. In many parts of the district, the custom of granting perpetual leases at a fixed rate prevails, the Emphyteutis of the Roman law, the sources of the prosperity of the cultivators in Upper and Lower Austria, and well known in Scotland under the name of feus. Sismondi has given the following account of the effect of the establishment of a permanent interest in the soil in arresting the effects of the malaria, and spreading cultivation over the land: – "The Emphyteutic cultivator has a permanent interest in the soil: he labours, therefore, unceasingly for the good of his family. He cuts out his slope into terraces, covers it with trees, fruits, and garden-stuffs: he takes advantage of every leisure moment, either in himself, his wife, or children, to advance the common cultivation. Industry and abundance reign around. Whenever you ascend the volcanic hills of Latium, or visit those ravishing slopes which so many painters have illustrated, around the lakes of Castel Gandolfo or Nemi, at L'Aricia, Rocca di Papa, Marino, and Frescati; whenever you meet with a smiling cultivation, healthy air, and the marks of general abundance, you may rest assured the cultivator is proprietor of the fruits of the soil. The bare right of property, or superiority, as the lawyers term it, belongs to some neighbouring lord; but the real property, "il miglioramento," belongs to the cultivator. In this way, in these happy districts, the great estates, the latifundia of Pliny, have been practically distributed among the peasantry; and, whenever this is the case, you hear no more of the malaria. Agriculture has caused to arise in those localities a numerous population, which multiplies with singular rapidity, and for ages has furnished cultivators not only for the mountains where it has arisen, but bands of adventurers, who in every age have filled the ranks of the Italian armies."30

But while those examples, to which, did our limits permit, many others might be added, decisively demonstrate that human industry can effectually overcome the physical difficulties or dangers of the Roman Campagna; yet it is clear that some great and overwhelming cause is at work, which prevents agriculture flourishing, by means of tenants or métayers, in the plains of the Campagna. The plains, it is true, are in the hands of a few great proprietors, but their tenants are extremely rich, often more so, Sismondi tells us, than their landlords. What is it, then, which for so long a period has chained the Campagna to pasturage, and rendered all attempts to restore it to the plough abortive? The answer is plain: It is the same cause now which binds it to pasturage, which did so under the Romans from the time of Tiberius —it is more profitable to devote the land to grass than to raise grain. And it is so, not because the land will not bear grain crops, for it would do now even better than it did in the days of the Etruscans and the Sabines; since so many centuries of intervening pasturage have added so much to its fertility. It is so, because the weakness of the Papal government, yielding, like the Imperial in ancient days, to the cry for cheap bread among the Roman populace, has fed the people, from time immemorial, with foreign grain, instead of that of its own territory. The evidence on this subject is as clear and more detailed in modern, than it was in ancient times; and both throw a broad and steady light on the final results of that system of policy, which purchases the present support of the inhabitants of cities, by sacrificing the only lasting and perennial sources of strength derived from the industry and population of the country.

During the confusion and disasters consequent on the fall of the Empire, after the capture of Rome by the Goths, the Campagna remained entirely a desert; but it continued in the hands of the successors of the great senatorial families who held it in the last days of the Empire. "The Agro Romano," says Sismondi, "almost a desert, had been long exposed to the ravages of the barbarians, who in 846 pillaged the Vatican, which led Pope Leo IV., in the following year, to enclose that building within the walls of Rome. For an hundred years almost all the hills which border the horizon from Rome were crowned with forts; the ancient walls of the Etruscans were restored, or rebuilt from their ruins; the old hill strengths, where the Sabines, the Hernici, the Volscians, the Coriolani, had formerly defended their independence, again offered asylums to the inhabitants of the plains. But the great estates, the bequest of ancient Rome, remained undivided. With the first dawn of history in the middle ages, we see the great house of the Colonna master of the towns of Palestrina, Genazzano, Zagorole; that of Orsini, of the territories of the republics of Veiæ and Ceres, and holding the fortresses of Bracciano, Anguetta, and Ceri. The Monte-Savili, near Albano, still indicates the possessions of the Savili, which comprehended the whole ancient kingdom of Turnus; the Frangipani were masters of Antium, Astura, and the sea-coast; the Gaetani, the Annibaldeschi of the Castles which overlook the Pontine marshes; while Latium was in the hands of a smaller number of feudal families than it had formerly numbered republics within its bounds."31

But while divided among these great proprietors, the Roman Campagna was still visited, as in the days of the emperor, with the curse of cheap grain, imported from the other states bordering on the Mediterranean, and was in consequence exclusively devoted to the purposes of pasturage. An authentic document proves that this was the case so far down as the fifteenth century. In the year 1471, Pope Sextus IV. issued a bull, which was again enforced by Clement VII. in 1523, and which bore these remarkable words: – "Considering the frequent famines to which Rome has been exposed in late years, arising chiefly from the small amount of lands which have been sown or laid down in tillage, and that their owners prefer allowing them to remain uncultivated, and pastured only by cattle, than to cultivate for the use of men, on the ground that the latter mode of management is more profitable than the former."32 The decree ordered the cultivation of a large portion of the Campagna in grain under heavy penalties.

And that this superior profit of pasturage to tillage has continued to the present time, and is the real cause of the long-continued and otherwise inexplicable desolation of this noble region, has been clearly demonstrated by a series of important and highly interesting official decrees and investigations, which, within this half century, have taken place by order of the Papal government. Struck with the continued desolation of so large and important a portion of their territory, the popes have both issued innumerable edicts to enforce tillage, and set on foot the most minute inquiries to ascertain the causes of their failure. It is only necessary to mention one. Pius VI., in 1783, took a new and most accurate survey or cadastre of the Agro Romano, and ordained the proprietors to sow annually 17,000 rubbi (85,000 acres) with grain.33 This decree, however, like those which had preceded it, was not carried into execution. "The proprietors and farmers," says Nicolai, "equally opposed themselves to its execution; the former declaring that they must have a higher rent for the land if laid down in tillage, than the latter professed themselves able to pay."34

To ascertain the cause of this universal and insurmountable resistance of all concerned to the cultivation of the Campagna, the Papal government in 1790 issued a commission to inquire into the matter, and the proprietors prescribe to two memoirs on the subject, which at once explained the whole difficulty. The one set forth the cost and returns of 100 rubbi (500 acres) in grain tillage in the Roman Campagna; the other, the cost and returns of a flock of 2500 sheep in the same circumstances. The result of the whole was, that while the grain cultivation would with difficulty, on an expenditure of 8000 crowns (£2000,) bring in a clear profit of thirty crowns (£7, 10s.) to the farmer, and nothing at all to the landlord, the other would yield between them a profit of 1972 crowns, (£496.)35 Well may Sismondi exclaim: – "These two reports are of the very highest importance. They explain the constant invincible resistance which the proprietors and farmers of the Roman Campagna have opposed to the extension of grain cultivation; they put in a clear light the opposite interest of great capitalists and the interest of the state; they give in authentic details, which I have personally verified, and found to be still entirely applicable and correct, on the causes which have reduced the noble district of the Roman Campagna to its desolate state, and still retain it in that condition. Incredible as the statements may appear, they are amply borne out by everyday experience. In effect, all the farmers whom I have consulted, affirm, that they invariably lose by grain cultivation, and that they never resort to it, but to prevent the land from being overgrown by brushwood or forests, and rendered unfit for profitable pasturage."36

Extraordinary as these facts are, as to the difference between the profits of pasturage and tillage in the Agro Romano, it is only by the most rigid economy, and reducing the shepherds to the lowest amount of subsistence consistent with the support of life, that the former yields any profits at all. The wages of the shepherds are only fifty-three francs (£2) for the winter season, and as much for the summer; the proprietors, in addition, furnishing them with twenty ounces of bread a-day, a half-pound of salt meat, a little oil and salt a-week. As to wine, vinegar, or fermented liquors, they never taste any of them from one year's end to another. Such as it is, their food is all brought to them from Rome; for in the whole Campagna there is not an oven, a kitchen, or a kitchen-garden, to furnish an ounce of vegetables or fruits. The clothing of these shepherds is as wretched as their fare. It consists of sheep-skin, with the wool outside; a few rags on their legs and thighs, complete their vesture. Lodging or houses they have none; they sleep in the open air, or nestle into some sheltered nook among the ruined tombs or aqueducts which are to be met with in the wilderness, in some of the caverns, which are so common in that volcanic region, or beneath the arches of the ancient catacombs. A few spoons and coarse jars form their whole furniture; the cost of that belonging to twenty-nine shepherds, required for the 2500 sheep, is only 159 francs (£7.) The sum total of the expense of the whole twenty-nine persons, including wages, food, and every thing, is only 1038 crowns, or £250 a-year; being about £8, 10s. a-head annually. The produce of the flock is estimated at 7122 crowns (£1780) annually, and the annual profit 1972 crowns, or £493.37

The other table given by Nicolai, exhibits, on a similar expenditure of capital, the profit of tillage; and it is so inconsiderable, as rarely, and that only in the most favourable situations, to cover the expense of cultivation. The labourers, who almost all come from the neighbouring hills, above the level of the malaria, are obliged to be brought from a distance at high wages for the time of their employment; sometimes in harvest wages are as high as five francs, or four shillings a-day. The wages paid to the labourers on a grain farm on which £2000 has been expended on 500 acres, amount to no less than 4320 crowns, or £1080 sterling, annually; being above four times the cost of the shepherds for a similar expenditure of capital, though they wander over ten times the surface of ground. The labourers never remain in the fields; they set off to the hills when their grain is sown, and only return in autumn to cut it down. They do not work above twenty or thirty days in the year; and therefore, though their wages for that period are so high, they are in misery all the rest of the season. But though so little is done for the land, the price received for the produce is so low, that cultivation in grain brings no profit, and is usually carried on at a loss. The peasants who conduct it never go to Rome – have often never seen it; they make no purchases there; and the most profitable of all trades in a nation, that between the town and the country, is unknown in the Roman States.38

Here, then, the real cause of the desolation of the Campagna stands revealed in the clearest light, and on the most irrefragable evidence. It is not cultivated for grain crops, because remunerating prices for that species of produce cannot be obtained. It is exclusively kept in pasturage, because it is in that way only that a profit can be obtained from the land. And that it is this cause, and not any deficiency of capital or skill on the part of the tenantry, which occasions the phenomenon, is further rendered apparent by the wealth, enterprize, and information on agricultural subjects, of the great farmers in whose lands the land is vested. "The conductors," says Sismondi, "of rural labour in the Roman States, called Mercanti di Tenute or di Campagne, are men possessed of great capital, and who have received the very best education. Such, indeed, is their opulence, that it is probable they will, erelong, acquire the property of the land of which at present they are tenants. Their number, however, does not exceed eighty. They are acquainted with the most approved methods of agriculture in Italy and other countries; they have at their disposal all the resources of science, art, and immense capital; have availed themselves of all the boasted advantages of centralization, of a thorough division of labour, of a most accurate system of accounts, and checking of inferior functionaries. The system of great farms has been carried to perfection in their hands. But, with all these advantages, they cannot in the Agro Romano, once so populous, still so fertile, raise grain to a profit. The labourers cost more than they are worth, more than their produce is worth; while on a soil not richer, and under the same climate and government, in the marches of Ancona, agriculture maintains two hundred souls the square mile, in comfort and opulence."39

What, then, is the explanation which is to be given of this extraordinary impossibility of raising grain with a profit in the Roman Campagna; while in a similar climate, and under greater physical disadvantages, it is in the neighbouring plains of Pisa, and the Campagna Felice of Naples, the most profitable of all species of cultivation, and therefore universally resorted to? The answer is obvious – It is the cry for cheap bread in Rome, the fatal bequest of the strength of the Imperial, to the weakness of the Papal government, which is the cause. It is the necessity under which the ecclesiastical government felt itself, of yielding every thing to the clamour for a constant supply of cheap bread for the people of the town which has done the whole. It is the ceaseless importation of foreign grain into the Tiber by government, to provide cheap food for the people, which has reduced the Campagna to a wilderness, and rendered Rome in modern, not less than Tadmor in ancient times, a city in the desert.

It has been already noticed, that in the middle of the fifteenth century Sextus IV. issued a decree, ordaining the proprietors of lands in the Campana to lay down a third of their estates yearly in tillage. But the Papal government, not resting on the proprietors of the soil, but mainly, in so far as temporal power went, on the populace of Rome, was under the necessity of making at the same time extraordinary efforts to obtain supplies of foreign grain. A free trade in grain was permitted to the Tiber, or rather the government purchased foreign grain wherever they could find it cheapest, as the emperors had from a similar apprehension done in ancient times, and retailed it at a moderate price to the people. They became themselves the great corn-merchant. This system, of course, prevented the cultivation of the Campagna, and rendered the decree of Sextus IV. nugatory; for no human laws can make men continue a course of labour at a loss to themselves. Thence the citizens of Rome came to depend entirely on foreign supplies of grain for their daily food; and the consumption of the capital had no more influence on the agriculture of the adjoining provinces, than it had on that of Hindostan or China. Again, as in the days of Tacitus, the lives of the Roman people were exposed to the chances of the winds and the waves. As this proved a fluctuating and precarious source of supply, a special board, styled the Casa Annonaria, was constituted by government for the regular importation of foreign grain, and retailing of it at a fixed and low price to the people. This board has been in operation for nearly two hundred and fifty years; and it is the system it has pursued which has prevented all attempts to cultivate the Campagna, by rendering it impossible to do so at a profit. The details of the proceedings of this board – this "chamber of commerce" of Rome, are so extremely curious and instructive, that we must give them in the authentic words of Sismondi.

"Having failed in all their attempts to bring about the cultivation of the Campagna, the popes of the 17th and 18th centuries endeavoured to secure abundance in the markets by other means. The motive was legitimate and praiseworthy; but the means taken failed in producing the desired effect, because they sacrificed the future to the present, and, in the anxiety to secure the subsistence of the people, compromised those who raised food for them. Pope Pius VI., who reigned from 1600 to 1621, instituted the Casa Annonaria of the apostolic chamber, which was charged with the duty of providing subsistence for the inhabitants of Rome. This board being desirous, above all things, of avoiding seditions and discontent, established it as a principle, that whatever the cost of production was, or the price in a particular year, bread should be sold at certain public bake-houses at a certain price. This price was fixed at a Roman baiocco, a tenth more than the sous of France, (1/2 d. English,) for eight ounces of bread. This price has now been maintained constantly the same for two hundred years; and it is still kept at the same level, with the difference only of a slight diminution in the weight of the bread sold for the baiocco in years of scarcity.

"As a necessary consequence of this regulation, the apostolic chamber soon found itself under the necessity of taking entire possession of the commerce of grain. It not only bought up the whole which was to be obtained in the country, but provided for the public wants by large importation. Regulations for the import and export of grain were made by it; sometimes, it was said, through the influence of those who solicited exemptions. Whether this was the case or not is uncertain, and not very material. What is certain is, that the rule by which the chamber was invariably regulated, viz. that of consulting no other interest but that of the poor consumer, is as vicious and ruinous as the one so much approved of now-a-days, of attending only to the interest of the proprietors and producers. Government, doubtless, should attend to the vital matter of the subsistence of the people; but it should do so with a view to the interest of all, not a single section of society.

"At what price soever bread was bought by them, the Casa Annonaria sold it to the bakers at seven Roman crowns (30 f.) the rubbio, which weighs 640 kilograms, (1540 lbs.) That price was not much different from the average one; and the apostolic chamber sustained no great loss till 1763, by its extensive operations in the purchase and sale of grain. But at that period the price of wheat began to rise, and it went on continually advancing to the end of the century. Notwithstanding its annual losses, however, the apostolic chamber was too much afraid of public clamour to raise the price of bread. It went on constantly retailing it at the same price to the people; and the consequence was, that its losses in 1797, when the pontifical government was overturned, had accumulated to no less than 17,457,485 francs, or £685,000."40

It might naturally have been imagined, that after so long an experience of the effects of a forcible reduction of the price of grain below the level at which it could be raised at a profit by home cultivators, the ecclesiastical government would have seen what was the root of the evil, and applied themselves to remedy it, by giving some protection to native industry. But though the evil of the desolation of the Campagna was felt in its full extent by government in subsequent times; yet as the first step in the right course, viz. protecting native industry by stopping the sales of bread by government at lower prices than it could be raised at home, was likely to occasion great discontent, it was never attempted. Such a step, dangerous in the firmest and best established, was impossible in an elective monarchy of old Popes, feeble cardinals, and a despicable soldiery. They went on deploring the evil, but never once ventured to face the remedy. In 1802, Pius VII., a most public-spirited and active pontiff, issued an edict, in which he declared, "We are firmly persuaded that if we cannot succeed in applying a remedy the abandonment and depopulation of the Campagna will go on increasing, till the country becomes a fearful desert. Fatal experience leaves no doubt on that point. We see around us, above all in the Campagna, a number of estates entirely depopulated and abandoned to grass, which, in the memory of man, were rich in agricultural productions, and crowded with inhabitants, as is clearly established by the seignorial rights attached to them. Population had been introduced into these domains by agriculture, which employed a multitude of hands, being in a flourishing state. But now the obstacles opposed to the interior commerce of grain, and the forced prices fixed by government, have caused agriculture to perish. Pasturage has come every where to supplant it; and the great proprietors and farmers living in Rome, have abandoned all thought of dividing their possessions among cultivators, and sought only to diminish the cost of the flocks to which they have devoted their estates. But if that system has proved profitable to them, it has been fatal to the state, which it has deprived of its true riches, the produce of agriculture, and of the industry of the rural population."41 But it was all in vain. The measures adopted by Pius VII. to resuscitate agriculture in the Campagna, have proved all nugatory like those of all his predecessors; the importation of foreign grain into the Tiber, the forced prices at which it was sold by the government at Rome, rendered it impossible to prosecute agriculture to a profit; and the Campagna has become, and still continues, a desert.42

Here, then, the real cause of the long-continued desolation of the Agro Romano, both in ancient and modern times, becomes perfectly apparent. It is the cry for cheap bread in Rome which has done the whole. To stifle this cry in the dreaded populace of the Eternal City, the emperors imported grain largely from Egypt and Lybia, and distributed it at an elusory price, or gratuitously, to the people. The unrestricted importation of foreign grain, in consequence of those provinces becoming parts of the empire, enabled the cultivators and merchants of Africa to deluge the Italian harbours with corn at a far cheaper rate than it could be raised in Italy itself, where labour bore a much higher price, in consequence of money being more plentiful in the centre than the extremities of the empire. Thus the market of its towns was lost to the Italian cultivators, and gained to those of Egypt and Lybia, where a vertical sun, or the floods of the Nile, almost superseded the expense of cultivation. Pasturage became the only way in which land could be managed to advantage in the Italian fields; because live animals and dairy produce do not admit of being transported from a distance by sea, with a profit to the importer, and the sunburnt shores of Africa yielded no herbage for their support. Agriculture disappeared in Italy, and with it the free and robust arms which conducted it; pasturage succeeded, and yielded large rentals to the great proprietors, into whose hands, on the ruin of the little freeholders by foreign importation, the land had fallen. But pasturage could not nourish a bold peasantry to defend the state; it could only produce the riches which might attract its enemies. Hence the constant complaint, that Italy had ceased to be able to furnish soldiers to the legionary armies; hence the entrusting the defence of the frontier to mercenary barbarians, and the ruin of the empire.