Artichoke production in Italy 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 during the fifteenth century in Naples, where it was considered a new food species. In 1466, Filippo Strozzi brought the first
Albanese variety Albanese variety In mathematics, the Albanese variety "A"("V"), named for Giacomo Albanese, is a generalization of the Jacobian variety of a curve. The Albanese variety is the abelian variety generated by a variety "V" taking a given point of "V" to the identity of "A". In other words, there is a morphism from the variety "V" to its Albanese variety "A"("V"), such that any morphism from "V" to an abelian variety (taking the given point to the identity) factors uniquely through "A"("V"). For complex manifolds defined the Albanese variety in a similar way, as a morphism from "V" to a