The orange tree originally comes from China, where it was cultivated two thousand years ago. The Arabs introduced it to Italy in the XI century. But the early orange trees were of the bitter variety, whose fruit was unpalatable. The sweet orange only reached Italy in 1520 thanks to some Portuguese seamen who had stolen it from China. Its cultivation had trouble getting started, because the plant had to adapt to the new climatic conditions. So oranges were rare and expensive fruit up until the 20th century, when cultivations were