«Avanguardie mediterranee» sul Lago di Como. Agrumi, alloro e lemonihändler tra XVI e XIX

«MEDITERRANEAN BRIDGEHEADS» ON LAKE COMO. CITRUS FRUITS, LAUREL AND LEMONIHÄNDLERBETWEEN SIXTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES –Significant stretches of the shores of the great Italian pre-alpine lakes have been affected, throughout the course of the modern age and sometimes up to the 20thcentury, by the cultivation of citrus fruits. Among these geographies emerges, as well in the background compared to the centrality of the Lake Garda area, that of the Lake Como. In this area, a limited economic and landscape role was even assumed by the presence of laurel and the singular production of olive oil derived from it. Historical-economic and geographical research has been substantially uninterested in these aspects, apart from that, produced mainly in the German area, focused on emigration and migratory chains connected with the commercialisation of these products towards central Europe, as well as their social andpolitical outcomes in the German cities involved. Through a re-reading of such last research, and, above all, through the original joint use of literary sources and limited but indicative cadastral sources, the article highlights the possible historical origins and the economic and territorial importance of these two crops, outlining their main production areas sincethe 15thcentury.