Artichoke production in Italy artichoke to Florence. By 1473, it had arrived in Venice. In 1915, 64,000 tons were produced. Italy produces dozens of varieties. Artichoke production in Italy Artichoke production in Italy has a long history. Italy is the world's largest producer of artichokes. With Spain and France, the three countries produce more than 80% of the world's artichokes. There are two theories as to its origin: artichokes may have come from the Levant, derived from the cardoon or thistle through a cross-fertilization process, while others attribute it to the work of Italian horticulturists. The first record of artichoke cultivation in Italy was
Secant variety Secant variety In algebraic geometry, the secant variety formula_1, or the variety of chords, of a projective variety formula_2 is the Zariski closure of the union of all secant lines (chords) to "V" in formula_3: (for formula_5, the line formula_6 is the tangent line.) It is also the image under the projection formula_7 of the closure "Z" of the incidence variety Note that "Z" has dimension formula_9 and so formula_1 has dimension at most formula_9. More generally, the formula_12 secant variety is the Zariski closure of the union of the linear spaces spanned by collections of k+1 points on formula_13.