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A
snapshot of the year 1771: 658 inhabitants, 3 448 olive trees
and … 132 pigs.
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When
France took possession of its new province, it defined
four major priorities: to know, understand, organize and
exploit the land it had bought from Genoa. In
1770, the "terrestrial survey", a detailed study
of each village community, was defined. The next year,
the survey began in the Cap Corse, and notably in Pietracorbara.
Besides some documents of rare cartographic beauty, the
village "snapshot" is striking: in 1771, the
village was composed of 658 inhabitants, 10 hectares of
chestnuts, 108 hectares of vines and 22 hectares of olive
trees, making for a grand total of 3 448 trees!
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Pietracorbara
in the terrestrial survey.
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In all, 270
hectares of the 2 600 which made up the community were cultivated.
Wheat, barely and corn were planted and reaped. "They
reap double that which is sown", wrote the authors
of the terrestrial survey. Even animals were counted in
the census: 18 bulls, 21 horses, 26 cows, 40 chickens (which
is not a lot!), 81 donkeys, 132 pigs, 288 ewes and 482 goats.
Finally, the port of Ampuglia - or what remained
of it - is shown to have maintained 12 magazini,
or gondola moorings...and not the kind of gondolas you would
find in Venice, but rather the large barges that transported
goods from nearby Tuscany.
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Painted
map of the northern part of Pietracorbara in the terrestrial survey
maps.
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Viva, Spring 2000
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