Meet the Italian ‘Fruit Detective’

When Isabella Dalla Ragione assesses a Renaissance painting, she doesn’t immediately notice the brushstrokes or the magnificence of the imagery. The first thing she notices is the fruit.

She steers us to one more Madonna with Child, the center of an altarpiece painted by Bernardino di Betto, better known as Pintoricchio, in 1495 or 1496. It is all glimmering blues and reds and golds. “Look, there,” she exclaims, pointing to the bottom of the painting. At the Madonna’s feet, just off the gold hem of her azure robe, are three gnarly looking apples—oddly shaped varieties you’d never see in a market today. 

For most viewers, they would be an afterthought. For Dalla Ragione, the apples, including a variety known in the fruit science lexicon as api piccola, represent a key to restoring Italy’s disappearing fruit agriculture, with characteristics not found in today’s apples: Crunchy and tart, they are capable of being stored at room temperature for about seven months and maintain their best qualities outside the fridge. Mark Schapiro, Smithsonian