Camillo Tarello: The Forgotten Farmer Who Outsmarted The State – Analysis

By Lorenzo Cianti

Until the Industrial Revolution came along, communities could only grow and thrive if they first managed to push agricultural productivity well beyond bare subsistence. Italy’s late-medieval and Renaissance ascent—from 1250 to the mid-16th century—demonstrates how a functioning rural economy could break the cycle of the chronic poverty that had shackled mankind for millennia.

For three full centuries the communes of central and northern Italy turned themselves into Europe’s greatest commercial hubs.