When we bought a ruin in the middle of the Cecina valley in the municipality of Pomarance 20 years ago, we could not imagine the path this land would take us along.
Santa Bianca is a magical place that we worked very hard to set up and that even now takes up all the time we have available.
When, as growers of medicinal herbs, we approached the world of essential oils we immediately felt a strong call to delve deeper into the science behind distillation, a bit like a calling.
Today, knowing that we are the heirs of a profession that has its roots in the dawn of civilization gives us a feeling of vertigo and pride.
The first vessels containing essential oils date back to thousands of years BC, the oldest distillation instrument found by Dr. Paolo Rovesti in Pakistan in 1975 dates back to 3000 BC.
The first, of which we have news, to have studied in depth the distillation techniques and the properties of essential oils were the Egyptians, thanks to the Erberes papyrus we have news that they knew the properties of the Cumin as a remedy for abdominal swelling and for coughs; the same article reports real recipes such as the one against hay fever made with Aloe, Myrrh, Antimony and Honey.The priests were real distillers of essences for sacred rites, for example the use of incense is particularly well-known and still used today.
However, the use of essences was not only known to priests and doctors, even the common people knew the benefits of aromatic herbs in cooking: Mint, Marjoram And Cumin were the basis of the Egyptian diet.
Queen Hatshepsut, the first woman to be elected pharaoh, was a great lover of essential oils, which she had shipped from all over the known world.
This knowledge was also known to the Jews, in the book of Exodus. God teaches Moses how to make the holy oil to consecrate Aaron with Myrrh, Cinnamon, sweet cane (probably hemp) and olive oil (Exodus 30:22-25) and tells him to get balms of Galbanum And Incense.
In addition to gold, Jesus also receives as a gift the incense (symbol of holiness) and the Myrrh (which prophesies his end) and Mary Magdalene anoints his feet, during the Last Supper, with the oil of Spikenard (John 12, 1-7).
The myrrh It will also be the smell that the three Marys will smell after the resurrection.
The Romans learned to use essential oils from the Greeks, Herodotus brought the first rudiments of distillation back to Europe from Egypt.
However, we had to wait until around the year 1000 for a methodical study and technological advances in the field of distillation.
We owe a lot to the Persian physician Avicenna, he is credited with the invention of the condenser which allows for the distillation that we, 1000 years later, still use.With the fall of the Roman Empire, Roman doctors who fled Constantinople brought with them the writings of Galen and Hippocrates, thus spreading them throughout Europe.
During the Middle Ages, the antiseptic properties of some plants began to be known, Lavender, Rosemary And Sage They were used to protect the house from diseases, today we know that also the laurel, the lemon and the tea tree They are very powerful antibacterials.
The spagyrics and alchemists refined the techniques and completed the studies that we still use to understand the properties of essential oils.
Paracelsus, the father of Spagyric medicine, believed that man is one with the cosmos and is made up of three principles: Sulphur, Mercury and Salt.
Sulfur is seen as the energy of the soul, represented by the essential oils of plants within spagyric remedies.
Today essential oils are used in many fields, and looking back at this incredible story that has accompanied the human race throughout its journey, we cannot help but feel a shiver every time we light the burner under the distiller.