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Origins of Commodity Science

(adapted from the original text written by Prof. Giancarlo Santoprete, University of Pisa)

The evolution of the culture and development of studies in commodity science and production technology are outlined below, in their essential features, with reference to the key stages in the history of the cultural institutions related to the economic field. In particular, the analysis is conducted with reference to the periods and themes specified below:

1769

In 1769, James Watt obtained the patent for the steam engine, an event commonly regarded as one of the starting points of the Industrial Revolution. In that same period, Johann Beckmann, an economist at the University of Göttingen, perceived the need to give shape to new disciplines capable of studying production processes and goods.
Appointed Professor of Economics at Göttingen in 1770, Beckmann first introduced the discipline of Technology, understood as the study of the methods (art, techné in Greek) through which natural resources are transformed into products within a firm or production plant.
In 1793, in light of the quantitative and qualitative increase in goods made possible by technological development, Beckmann proposed a new discipline, which he called Warenkunde (Ware = object, product, good; Kunde = study, knowledge). The term was translated into Italian as Merceologia (alternatively Merciologia, a form that did not prevail).
Johann Beckmann can therefore be credited as the founder of two strongly interrelated disciplines: the Technology of production cycles and Commodity Science (Merceologia).

In 1852, the Higher Schools of Commerce were established—institutions that would later become today’s Faculties of Economics. In these programs, Commodity Science played a fundamental role. In the same year, the first Higher School of Commerce was founded in Antwerp, an important commercial city and port. The creation of this institution, and of the others that would later arise in major European centres, was tied to the growing need of commercial and industrial firms for professionals equipped with solid competences in commodity science, commerce, and accounting.
The curricula of these Schools included Accounting, Model Bank operations, Commercial Techniques, and related subjects. Commodity Science occupied a central place, also thanks to the presence of the Commodity Museum and the Commodity Laboratory, essential tools for contractual definitions, for example in commodity exchanges.
From this practical orientation arose two disciplines of great relevance for defining the chemical and physical characteristics of products and for detecting fraud, quality, and functional suitability of goods: Commodity Chemistry and Commodity Analysis.

In 1935, Italian Higher Schools of Commerce were transformed into Faculties of Economics and Commerce. In Italy, already in the late 1920s and early 1930s, due to their growing importance, these Schools had been elevated to university rank, until officially assuming in 1935 the name “Facoltà di Economia e Commercio”.
The originally practical subjects of the Higher Schools of Commerce were progressively complemented by theoretical teachings in economics, in line with the influence of the Anglo-Saxon world, where economic studies were already distinct from technical-administrative and commercial disciplines.

Between the two World Wars, some business-related disciplines evolved, while Commodity Science remained anchored to the tradition shaped by the eminent scholar Vittorio Villavecchia. The shift in economic studies between the First and Second World Wars—accentuated by the 1928-32 crisis—pushed economists to pursue with greater determination the analysis of the laws governing major economic phenomena. In this period, the American approach to economic studies prevailed, and the crisis of more pragmatic disciplines intensified.
However, among the disciplines closest to the microeconomic reality of firms, Accounting successfully renewed its content by absorbing Anglo-American and German contributions, and Commercial Technique evolved into Industrial and Commercial Technique. Commodity Science, by contrast, continued in some cases to provide naturalistic and descriptive knowledge of goods, not always aligned with the professional needs of the Faculties of Economics and Commerce.
The reasons for this delay in evolution can be attributed to the strong influence exerted by Vittorio Villavecchia (1859–1937), a scholar of great prestige and author of the renowned Dizionario di Merceologia, internationally known. Villavecchia also provided inspiration for Customs Commodity Science, thanks to his role as Director of the Customs Chemical Laboratory and Professor of Commodity Science at the University of Rome.
Villavecchia tied his students to a descriptive and naturalistic tradition of products—as if the study of goods were limited to classification issues—overlooking the fact that a good, as such, belongs to the market, with all its multifaceted dynamics, and thus should be studied through a broader perspective, more relevant to the life of firms.

After the Second World War, Commodity Science finally entered a phase of renewed vigour and evolution, with a progressive expansion of the scientific content of Commodity Sciences and Economic-Technological Studies. Starting from the choices made for reconstruction, the need to overcome production monopolies, the establishment of an active international market, and the creation of the ECSC, the evolution of economic problems led Italian commodity science scholars in the 1950s to devote themselves to the technical study of economic issues and to adapt the discipline to emerging needs.
In this period, Commodity Science increasingly abandoned its descriptive and naturalistic orientation, addressing broader themes such as the study of production technologies and their effects on natural resources and the environment.
In Italy, further significant developments occurred between 1958 and 1962, with numerous studies and initiatives aimed at combating socially harmful fraud and identifying the most suitable technological procedures for agri-food firms, in order to ensure hygiene and safety of food products.
This intense activity culminated legislatively in the Framework Law on the production and trade of food products (Law 30 April 1962, no. 283, and its implementing regulation of 1980), which profoundly reshaped the sector and oriented production and trade towards models more suitable for market and societal development. Food Commodity Science played a decisive role in this context.

Starting in the 1970s, commodity science disciplines began to systematically address issues related to resource depletion and environmental pollution. Scholars of Commodity Sciences and Economic-Technological Studies—concerned about the risk of exhaustion of certain resources and the problems arising from unregulated disposal of industrial, agricultural, and urban waste, as well as critical of certain production technologies—directed their research towards broader socio-economic questions, posing new issues on what to produce and how to produce.
The first answers were developed through the identification of possible resource substitutions, the analysis of alternative production cycles, and the promotion of conscious management of non-renewable and renewable resources (such as water and waste). In this context, the Commodity Science of natural resources emerged strongly.
In 1973, the oil crisis opened a new chapter: that of “energy as a good” and of energy technologies, shifting attention toward the analysis of embodied energy in products and the study of different energy sources, both exhaustible and renewable. Consequently, in academic teaching, the topic of energy sources assumed a central role, and the course “Technology and Economics of Energy Sources” was introduced in several Faculties of Economics and Commerce.
In the 1980s and 1990s, reflection on new technologies (clean, appropriate, advanced) and on issues of standardisation, quality, and certification also became increasingly prominent. After 1993, with the implementation of the European Single Market, quality and certification gained growing importance not only in university research but also in business practice, as firms were required to address these issues daily in production processes and commercial relations. The free movement of goods required shared standards, quality criteria, and certification systems—thus the importance of the discipline Theory and Techniques of Product Quality, recently introduced in the field but with historical roots in Commodity Sciences.
As already noted, from the late 1950s onward—parallel to the profound evolution of the economic-production system, international trade, and the volume and quality of goods produced and consumed, as well as the emergence of global issues such as hunger, environmental pollution, and the reduction of certain natural resources—Commodity Sciences underwent substantial renewal. This evolution involved not only broadening the topics addressed but also rethinking the perspective, methods, and objectives through which resources, goods, transformation processes, industries, finished products, their qualities, and the waste generated by production and use were studied.
In doing so, Commodity Science has made a significant contribution to the study of contemporary economic, technological, and environmental phenomena.