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Baron Samuel von Brukenthal cultivated pineapple over 200 years ago, in his orangery in the city of Avrig, Sibiu county, where he had a summer palace, the Brukenthal National Museum said in a press release on Thursday. The fruit quickly became so popular and fashionable that its image appeared on portraits of royalty, and rulers wanted their own bizarre “cones” to be grown on their estates.
“As early as 1757, Brukenthal started buying land. In the period 1770-1802, he especially expanded his property in Avrig, constantly buying hayfields and fields. At the time of his death, the area of the farm and residence at Avrig was approximately seven hectares. Over time, he invested significant sums of money, which made the superb summer residence as well as the farm very profitable. With a dairy, a farm and two taverns, the farm could be self-financed. At Avrig, agricultural innovations were promoted, through ecological research, which were placed in a community context. A high-performing agriculture was necessary to contribute essentially to the increase of well-being in the region. In the records of 1788, the introduction of 95 varieties of hair, 40 varieties of peach and 17 varieties of apple appear in the region. Different vegetables were grown in the vegetable garden. Various exotic fruits were also grown in the garden at Avrig, the baron’s orangery being famous at the time,” the Brukenthal National Museum press release states.
Brukenthal tried to acclimatize pineapples in Transylvania, but he was not the only one in Europe who started cultivating this fruit, according to those from the Brukenthal National Museum.
“As an exotic tropical fruit, pineapple quickly gained popularity in Europe. But their delivery from the overseas colonies to the European states was not only expensive, but also extremely long. Therefore, already in 1658, the first European fruit was cultivated, and in 1723 a huge greenhouse was built in Chelsea, England, intended exclusively for this tropical crop.
The pineapple became so popular and fashionable that its image appeared on portraits of royalty, and rulers wanted their own bizarre “cones” to be grown on their estates. For example, a portrait with a pineapple of King Henry II is known; in 1733, a pineapple from his own greenhouse in Versailles appeared on the table of Louis XV. Ecaterina II also received fruit from her farms in St. Petesburg, until her death.
The acclimatization experiments from Avrig, in Transylvania, of trees and other plants brought from foreign countries were equally part of Baron Brukenthal’s concept, as was the exoticism of his famous greenhouse, where he grew pineapples. This luxury fruit was the embodiment of good taste and refined culinary pleasures. Even though it was on the edge of the Empire, during the time of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, Transylvania became an integral part of the international modernization process”, explained the interim manager of the Sibiu museum, Alexandru Constantin Chituţă.
According to the Sibiu museum’s manager, “along with collecting art objects or old books, but also cultivating the spirit, Samuel von Brukenthal had a constant concern for nature. In 1780 he ordered that the ponds around the city of Sibiu be filled with earth, turning them into rich and flourishing vegetable gardens and orchards. Almost every bourgeois family in Sibiu had its own green space outside the city walls. At that time plants, shrubs or different trees were imported from Vienna or Munich. Rare plants were then, as now, a special attraction.”
The Brukenthal National Museum is presenting information about the former governor of Transylvania, Brukenthal, within a project called “What Samuel von Brukenthal really did”, on the occasion of the 206th anniversary of the opening of the Brukenthal National Museum in 2023 and 220 years since his death.
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