Materialising political economy: olive oil, patronage and science in Eighteenth-century Rome

Abstract

The present article will explore some significant moments of the patronage bond between the Piarist Bartolomeo Gandolfi and Prince Andrea Doria Pamphilj Landi, patron of arts and science and one of the most powerful members of the Papal States’ landed aristocracy in the 1790s. Chair in Philosophy, Mathematics and Theology at the Collegio Nazareno (1780s), Gandolfi had worked as tutor to the children of Prince Andrea, developing a relationship of mutual trust with the Doria Pamphilj Landi family and carrying out land surveys to increase their grain and olive oil productions. This article will focus on Gandolfi’s scholarly identity and scientific endeavours and on his agronomic collaboration with the Doria Pamphilj Landi family as a lens to enquire into the function of patronage practices and improvement in the concrete realisation of political economic reforms in the Papal States under Pius VI.