« …more than ten classes of different workers, whose names [cannot be] rendered in any language … [For certain tasks] there are day-labourers who come down from the Sabine mountains; [for others] workers from the Marches and Tuscany; for the bulk of the work, men from the Abruzzi; finally, for building the ricks, idlers from the public squares of Rome (piazzauoli di Roma) who are good for nothing else, are employed. This division of labour makes it possible to adopt the most thorough agricultural processes; the wheat is hoed at least twice and sometimes more often; since every man is assigned a particular task, he does it all the more promptly and precisely. Almost all this labour is carried out at a fixed rate, under the supervision of a large number of factors and under-factors; but the farmer always provides the food, for it would be impossible for the labourer to find any in this desert. He owes each man a measure of wine, the equivalent of 40 baiocs of bread a week and three pounds of
some other nutritive substance such as salt meat or cheese. During the winter season, the workers return at night to sleep in the casale, a huge unfurnished building in the centre of an immense farm. In summer … they sleep near their work, usually in the open air… »
Contributo di
Giuseppe Tagarelli