- Azienda Agricola Poderi di Palazzo Santostefano - ISPICA (RG) - ITALY
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Oil and myth
The name of our oil, L'ILLIBATO, refers not only to the important adjective of being “marked by absolute integrity and honesty,” as it also indicates one who is “free from any contamination of the original purity,” just like the goddess Athena who gave the gift of the first olive tree.
100% extra virgin
According to myth, in fact, Poseidon god of the sea and Athena goddess of wisdom and all the arts, disputing the sovereignty of Attica challenged each other as to who offered those people the most beautiful gift.
Behold, by striking the ground with the trident that had been given to him by the Cyclopes, Poseidon raised the most powerful and swiftest horse, capable of winning all battles; while Athena, by striking the rock with her spear, caused the first Olive tree to sprout from the bare earth, whose essence could not only illuminate the night and medicate wounds, but above all offer nourishment.
Since Zeus, from the heights of Olympus, chose the most peaceful invention, Athena won the challenge, and since she was immune to the arrows of Eros, god of love, she continued by her choice to remain an eternal virgin: this, in fact, is why we still use to classify high-quality oil as extra virgin, precisely in deference to the virgin Athena, to whom myth attributes the birth of the first Olive Tree.
According to another legend, not only is Apollo said to have been born under an olive branch, but his own son Aristeus, after learning from the nymphs the secrets of cultivating olive trees, taught the Greeks how to press olives to obtain oil. With Greek colonization in the Mediterranean and Sicily in particular, olive growing became a mainstay of the economy, so much so that amphorae in large quantities are preserved in every museum in this region, as well as oil lamps and unguentariums, since the so-called “green gold” was also made into precious scented balms, which Phoenician ships carried to exchange goods with other countries. Since olive-growing was already widespread in Homer's time throughout Magna Graecia, even in the Iliad and the Odyssey the olive tree and its oil are often recounted, just as stupendous is the description of the bedroom in which Penelope welcomed Odysseus on his return, which he himself had built before his departure precisely from olive wood.
Throughout the millennia, the olive tree has compensated for human labor, thought and feeling, so much so that it is an integral part of our geographic, agronomic, as well as spiritual history; given the extraordinary ability of the olive tree and its oil to provoke human feeling and imagination in eloquent and persuasive forms, its foliage and essence are found in poetry, as well as in religion and its liturgies, becoming a symbol of consecration of kings and priests. However, the olive tree is undoubtedly also the most human of trees: “for its nature, like that of man, is supremely rich in contrasts. The top stands resplendent, but the trunk is gnarled and the branches twisted. The leaf is gentle, but sharp. The appearance is sweet, but it holds the strength of a life of centuries. Tender is the fruit, with the hardest nub, and from its liquid essence burns the flame that nourishes and destroys: life and death meet, consecrated by it, like the joy of offering and the extreme rite of sacrifice. The most sublime spirituality and the most earthly aspects merge, therefore, in the olive tree: that is why it is the tree of man.”
Savor the purity of an extra virgin oil that encapsulates the essence of nature, prepared according to the rules of tradition. Elevate your senses, return to the origins of taste.
Oil and myth
We have always cared passionately for the Poderi di Palazzo Santostefano, carrying on a family tradition that, from the land to the table, holds the secret of an excellent oil
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