L'ispirazione per questo post mi è nata da un commento di Hesperia . Post che mi ha dato anche l'opportunità per approfondire un argomento storico, legato ad uno dei primi 
crolli in borsa: that linked securities pastel of Toulouse. The stock exchange, as we know it today, had its earliest origins in Amsterdam at the end of the historical cycle of this post: in the middle of the sixteenth century. A story of the stock market crash is related a story that would seem out of the pen of a novelist, a story I had always believed tied to a secret. Instead, it was not secret but was rather a story of ingenuity, perseverance, resourcefulness of Toulouse who had sensed the great potential of a product of their land and had studied the way different from the others to extract from what turned out the best color of the blue pigment of existing allora sui mercati . E quindi, se Matilde Serao, nel suo romanzo omonimo, aveva definito ironicamente Napoli come Il Paese di Cuccagna , c'è stato un tempo in cui fu Tolosa quello della vera cuccagna. 
mmerciando the cocagnes , a generic product of their land. The uniqueness of the product, lack of competition among the few families who held that kind of patent, together with the ability to maintain secrecy about their business, allowed the families to achieve stunning gains, with a minimum expenditure of energy. But what is this cocagnes , whose term Italianate became bonanza? E 'a derivative from from a typical crop of that rich land. They were the leaves of pastel that, soaked in water, to be reduced to a pulp, were then pressed his hands and made into balls the size of a fist. Without then dried for about 15 days, they were the famous coques or cocagnes (see photo top), large balls of about one kg, which were exported throughout Europe, were the prized blue pigment for dry cleaners and in some cases, for painters. the base of the luck of the land of Cockaigne there was above all a passion for the blue part of the world's largest, and nobles; not surprisingly, during the Middle Ages, designated blue-blood social class of nobles. 
In that golden period were 60,000 hectares of cultivated land in pastel (see Isatis tinctoria, and ford in Italian), a plant similar to rape, against about 11,000 hectares ford (name used in Italy and Germany for the same Isatis dyeing) in the German city of Erfurt (even lived here a long period of abundance, from 1200 to 1600, thanks to rich income from trade of ford dye from the plant to ready).
Ad ogni modo, la scoperta che dalle foglie del pastel (guado) si potesse ricavare il pigmento del blu, fu per l'epoca una vera cuccagna. Considerato il migliore in Europa, era esportato in tutto l'Occidente, ed a prezzi altamente remunerativi per i produttori, che li arricchì notevolmente, assieme a mercanti e banchieri della zona. La domanda era crescente, così costoro, grazie alle ricchezze che andavano accumulando, furono in grado di cambiare il volto delle loro città, costruendo palazzi, torri e castelli. Tolosa si abbellì così di sontuosi palazzi, tra i quali spiccano i palazzi Assezat e Bernuy, ora trasformati in alberghi di lusso; ad Albi primeggiò il palazzo della famiglia Reynes.
Tolosa, in particolare, era così diventata la piattaforma mondiale del commercio del pastello, con succursali di banche, dove venivano negoziati e scambiati titoli legati alle fiorenti attività legate al pastel. L'epoca d’oro prosegue fin poco dopo la metà del XVI secolo, quando una crisi dei raccolti e la concorrenza sempre più agguerrita dell'indaco, proveniente dalle terre del Nuovo Mondo, ne decretò la fine definitiva. Era la fine della cuccagna.
Che pagò il conto diretto di quella sorta di speculazione sul Blu, furono in prima istanza un pò tutti i pittori e tintori europei. Il blu, infatti, non si trova puro in natura ed is the only color that man since ancient times has struggled to get . Of this fact, they certainly knew something even Giotto, who, to fresco the vault of the azzuzzi Scrovegni Chapel, had as the only option that was available on the market in its century: ' Azurite, a mineral rather common, but still quite expensive or the most expensive Ultramarine Blue. This was so named because it came from the countries of the Near East, beyond the sea, such as Syria and especially Afghanistan. During the golden age of Italian painting " almost all the workshops were producing and alchemists of colors and oxides based on their own and grinding the mixture of minerals and precious stones "(Hesperia: see start post). experimentation, but were unable to find a viable alternative to cocagnes French, which allowed those enrichments beyond measure.
Here a virtual tour of the Scrovegni Chapel, published by Il Sole 24 Ore
Dedication
This post is dedicated to a boy Milan that found in the Toulouse great love of his life, trasferendovisi. And because there hath been spoken of inventiveness and resourcefulness of Toulouse, I like to remember the history of this guy, yet completely unknown, it has imported a product in Toulouse Sicily, the land of his grandparents, devising, though, and trying again and again a new and original way to produce it. It becomes for him a new bonanza, as was the idea was developed by the ancient pastel on Toulouse.
Read more: Weekend in Toulouse
Cultorweb Middle Ages
Tourism: Toulouse and pastel
in Germany The ford
Photo:
Toulouse, Piazza del Campidoglio by Wikipedia
A "cocagne du pastel" from the site of the Museum of Toulouse
Blu Occitania: site typical crops in the world
Toulouse: Assezat Palace (now a hotel), site Amedeo Modigliani
View of Carcassonne : from Wikipedia
View of Albi: by Wikipedia
Chapel of Scrovegni: site Tanogabo
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