What exactly is a Fattoria ?
 

We are selecting an agriturismo in Tuscany and some of our favorites have the word
Fattoria in the name or description. I think I have noticed that most also produce/sell wine and olive oil. What exactly is a Fattoria?

Thanks for my vocabulary word definition of the day!!!

I think it means factory in Italian.

Farm, farmhouse, or farm building, depending on context

It's the Italian word for factory. It just means that your agriturismo sells products that they make onsite.

"Fattoria" is not factory.

Fattoria is the Italian word for farm, as far as I know.

I posted the meaning of "fattoria" above: farm, farmhouse, farm building (where work is done). It's NOT a factory. Weadles is correct, too. It's one of those words called a "false friend" because epeople mistakenly think it must mean "factory," since it seems so close.

well, well, well.

I tend to translate as "we make it here"

fare = to make
fanno = they make

We get our word "factory" from some derivative of "fattoria" but the image of smokestacks and assembly lines would be misleading for Italy. Many "fattoria" are operations run out of kitchens.

A factory is a "fabbrica." Factory and fattoria are derived from "factoria," but while the sense of making something is common to both, the words developed differently, and "factory" and "fattoria" do not mean the same thing. People who have print dictionaries can check them, but, if not, you can try the online dictionary ( www. garzanti.it ).

Means small farm according to two of my translation programs.

Hi all, the translation of fattoria means a farm.

"fattoria" is an Italian word meaning "farm" , as cmt and loveitaly have said. Yes, It is a "false friend" and is one of the words I use in my class to illustrate what "false friends" are.

It's the opposite of a weight-loss program.

Harzer

Never trust false friends ;)

Whatever it is, we really enjoyed the one we stayed at in Monteriggione a few years ago. Ours was a luxury B&B and they sold home-made olive oil. Probably this year they will be harvesting their first grapes to make their own wine.

Summing all this up, I guess we got a good defition at a small place where we asked exactly what it meant. Their explanation?
It's anyplace where they make and sell a food related product. It could be an estate vineyard. It could be the making and selling of olive oil. It could be cheese, it could be anything -- so long as it's food related and it's made or processed there.

If they make leather products, they won't call it a fattoria.

Regarding the definition as being "a farm", are some of you suggesting that a family who lives on a farm that simply grows wheat they sell to market for example, and they don't make or process anything would still be called a fattoria? I don't think so.

In reading and conversation, I've encounted fattoria used as a general word for farm, even one that just sells for market. In practice, of course, most family farms do process their own food products, at least on a small scale, but I don't think that's a prerequisite for being a fattoria. For example, large industrial livestock producers that don't do any processing, which would be "factory farms" in English, are often called "fattorie industriali."

It seems like azienda or azienda agricola is used only for farms that process their own goods, but I could be wrong. And then there's podere and tenuta, which historically referred to particular types of smallholdings, but increasingly have become quaint terms to make agriturismi sound wholesome (kind of how upscale restaurants call themselves osterie).

Do you know of a word for farms that sell only to market without processing anything?

It would be so much simnpler if everyone would just refer to either an Italian-English dictionary in print or an online dictionary, such as the one available on www.garzanti.it. I knew what the word meant, but I checked my dictionary (print) at home to be extra sure, just in case my memory had failed me. It just seems so odd that there should be all this speculation and debate over a word that appears in every Italian dictionary.

Here's the url of an nonline dictionary: http://www.garzantilinguistica.it/

And here's the definition of "fattoria":

fattoria s.f.
1 farm; (per allevamento di bestiame) stock-farm: - collettiva, collective farm
2 (casa) farmhouse
3 (non com.)...

a fattoria is a farm

Here are the translations into Italian of "farm":

Lemma Traduzione in sintesi
farm1 s.
1 fattoria; azienda agricola; tenuta, podere: - equipment, materiale agricolo / health -, clinica della salute / (econ.): - prices, prezzi...
to farm1 v.tr.
1 coltivare: he farms 200 acres, egli coltiva 200 acri
2 allevare ♦ v.intr. fare l'agricoltore; fare l'allevatore: he is farming in...
to farm out v.tr. e avv.
1 dare in appalto; dar fuori (lavoro ecc.): to - out taxes, appaltare la riscossione delle imposte
2 far allevare (un bambino) da altri.
to farm2 v.tr. (rar.) vuotare, pulire.
farmable agg. coltivabile.
farmer s.
1 coltivatore (diretto), colono, agricoltore / - 's year, anno agricolo
2 allevatore: stock -, allevatore di bestiame
3...
farmhand s. bracciante agricolo sin. farm labourer.
farmhouse s. casa colonica.
farming s.
1 il lavorare la terra; agricoltura; coltivazione: he likes -, gli piace fare l'agricoltore
2 il possedere, il dirigere una fattoria
3...
farm labourer »
farmhand.
farmstead s. (spec. amer.) fattoria.
farmyard s. aia; cortile sin. barnyard



Here, instead, is the translation of "factory":

factory s. fabbrica; stabilimento; officina: - costs, costi di produzione, di fabbricazione; - price, prezzo di fabbrica / - board, consiglio di fabbrica / - hand (o...

In answer to someone's question, no, a fattoria does not have to make some new product out of the agricultural products grown or raised on its farm in order to be a fattoria; it's simply a farm, not a manufacturing operation. It can simply raise chickens and sell chickens and eggs, or raise vegetables and sell them.

Thank you for the exact definition. The next time I'm in Tuscany, I'm going back to that place and tell those people they were wrong! What nerve of them thinking they knew the answer when they are only third of fourth generation of a family selling their farm products! And to think I actually believed them instead of looking in a dictionary!

Whoa. Now I'm really confused. That last long detailed post was made while I was typing. But the last statement of it is exactly what I said before, unless we're quibbling over the idea of eggs and vegetables being sold as not being "processed or made".

Did the family tell you that a farm was not a farm if it simply sold its agricultural products, but did not necessarily use them as raw materials which they themselves turned into some manufactured product for sale? (E.g., wheat--> bread; sheep's wool--> sweaters.) I doubt it.

By the way, why do you spell your screen name NeOpolitan, instead of NeApolitan? Is it intended on some play on words?

...intended to be....

1. Surely no-one who's ever been within 500 miles of Italy could possibly believe fattoria meant factory these days? So let's discard that.

2. But what do dictionaries say? My copy of Garzanti agrees with cmt. My copy of Cassells says "Farmhouse, farm buildings, dairy". My 1885 Tauchnitz says "factory; stewardship". My 1763 Veneroni denies the word exists.

3. FWIW: Never, in all the endless burbling in the press about the CAP, or in any meeting in Luxembourg I've ever been forced to sit through, have I heard "fattoria" used in the way British or American politicians use the word "farm" (as in "this policy will create devastation across the nation's farms"). In fact, I've only ever encountered it used to describe physical buildings - not that I'd regard that as indicating very much.

That's not to say cmt's wrong: Italian lacks an equivalent to the OED to take us easily through the history of a word's usage. But I'd suggest the answer to cmcbride's question is a great deal more complicated that cmt is making it out to be.

cmt, I guess all they really said was that it was a farm that sold food products. I'm not sure that processing or making the products came into the conversation. But those earlier posts that simply said a fattoria is a farm without mentioning selling anything are the posts that I was quibbling with.

As to Neopolitan vs. Neapolitan -- according to MOST English dictionaries, Neapolitan means "in the style of Naples" -- and is an adjective. Neopoliatan is a "person from Naples" and is a noun.

I am a noun, not an adjective. (although I've also been called an interjection)

The fact that "fattoria" does NOT mean "factory" has been burned into my brain ever since my second year of Italian in college, long ago. I had not done the homework one night, which had consisted of reading a story or two. Unfortunately I was called on to translate a few paragraphs that set the scenem taking place "nella fattoria della parrocchia." I didn't know those words, but thought I might guess. Like some people here, I made a reasopnable guess that "fattoria" must mean "factory." I also guessed that "parrocchia" might mean "wig." so I translated in as "wig factory." I clearly remember that the professor, born and raised on a farm in Imola and educated in Bologna, said that it was the farmyard of the parish church. As the story developed it became clear that this was just a little chicken yard, where the priests got their eggs. ("Wig," by the way, is "parrucca.")

There may be nuances of meaning differentiating "fattoria" from various other words for "farm," but still a "fattoria" is not a "factory. Better to be too simple than just wrong.

"NeOpolitan" used to be considered a misspelling of "NeApolitan," meaning a person from Naples OR in the style of Naples. Maybe the mistake became so commonplace that some dictionaries caved in and decided to call it acceptable. When translated from Italian (napoletano) TO English, it's always spelled with the A in any dictionaries I've ever seen. (I've seen it with what I consider the misspelling so often that I have checked it several times.)

Further to cmt's point, "Neapolitan" comes from the Latin (and Greek) name for Naples, which is Neapolis, NOT Neopolis. ("Nea polis" means "new city" in Greek; it's Nea- and not Neo- because "polis" is feminine.) "Neopolitan" has its origins in a mistake, and any attempt to draw a noun/adjective distinction has no etymological basis.

That makes sense, jahoulih. By the way, not one of the dictionaries I had acccess to today spelled it with the O intead of the A, so maybe the mistake is still just a mistake and hasn't become acceptable yet.

cmt is right. Check this TV program about a small farm.
http://www.mediaset.it/brand/canale5...amma_858.shtml

Well, it may be based on a mistake, but for fun I just googled "Neopolitan" and the very first hit was a link to Free Dictionary which says "Neopolitan is a noun --a resident of Naples".

Then I went to dictionary.com and entered Neopolitan. It said "noun, a resident of Naples". I entered Neapolitan and it said "adjective --Of, belonging to, or characteristic of Naples, Italy". Then it gave a second definition of "a resident of Naples, Italy."

Now you want to get real technical? My name has nothing to do with Naples, Italy. I live in Naples, Florida. So Italian roots and correct words in Italian really aren't important here. And now I think it is funny that I checked only two online dictionaries and got support for what I originally said from both of them. What's more, both dictionaries dropped the Italy part of the definition when it gave the Neopolitan one. So maybe, just maybe, it is an acceptable spelling for people from other places called Naples that aren't in Italy.

In any case, I don't think it's a big deal how I want to spell my name and not worth a big "my dictionary is better than your dictionary" sort of argument.
Can't people spell their own name any way they want? I know a girl who spells her name SanDee, and another girl who spells her name Doloros.

and cmt, I'm really surprised that your computer doesn't have access to either dictionary.com or to freedictionary.

I'm sure it does. But I prefer to use the reputable print dictionaries, if I'm someplace where I have access to them.

<<In any case, I don't think it's a big deal how I want to spell my name and not worth a big "my dictionary is better than your dictionary" sort of argument. Can't people spell their own name any way they want? I know a girl who spells her name SanDee, and another girl who spells her name Doloros.>>

Yes, people can and do spell their names as they please. I've seen Frankeye (for Frankie), Dontay (for Dante), Arenn (for Aaron), Mykal (for Micheal), Corrine (for Corinne), Sussan (for Susan). If you recall, this tangent started when I asked you if they was some reason WHY you spelled your screen name NeOpolitan rather than NeApolitan--whether it was some play on words. I'd been wondering that for a while. I'm aware that you will get plenty of hits for the O spelling. For now, it was nice to see that there were more hits for the A spelling, which has been correct for a long, long time. I know some people think it's cute or rebellious or "creative" or trailblazing to spell their children's names in some way other than the traditionally correct way, and, on the other hand, some people think they are spelling a name in the standard "correct" way, but misspell it because they don't know any better. Of course if you wanted to use the standard spelling, it would be Neapolitan, and all or almost all print dictionaries still provide that as the only accepted spelling.

P.S. I thought you said you didn't want to go back to posting on Fodors.

Please tell me where I said that I didn't want to go back to posting on Fodor's. Several people have mentioned that and I'm unsure why. I do recall saying that if Fodors preferred people not to correct misinformation, that perhaps I wouldn't miss it. But I haven't seen any signs recently of the editor who made that statement. That's all I remember saying. That's not quite the same thing is it?

Meanwhile what part of "I'm not from Naples, Italy so the Italian references don't really apply" did you not understand? And what part of "the first two dictionaries I looked at said Neopolitan is a person from Naples" was unclear? As I said I didn't think it was worth a silly "my dictionary is better than your dictionary" argument to me, but I guess it is to you. Feel free to use whichever dictionaries you like. I'm perfectly content with dictionary.com.

I've lived in Naples, Florida for 30 years. Neopolitan is a standard term for people who live here, just as it is supported by online dictionaries of the English language. On the other hand the term here for the adjective describing the style of architecture and other things is Neapolitan. That difference is supported by at least one dictionary's distinction between the noun and the adjective. I don't suppose Neopolitan is a standard term for people who live in Naples, Italy, however. If I move to Naples, Italy, I'll probably change the spelling.For now, I'll stick to the standard spelling that has been in use here for the 30 years I've lived here.

Thank you for asking and for caring.

By the way, if I HAD said I didn't want to post on Fodor's (which I don't think I did say) you're giving me a good reason why a person might say that. Your continuing twice after I explained WHY I spell the name that way and your condescending tone in saying things like "Of course if you wanted to use the standard spelling, it would be Neapolitan" even after twice explaining myself, and continuing to compare my spelling with the "rebellious and cute" mispellings of names because people "don't know better", does not go unnoticed. It reminds me why so many people find it difficult to post here.
I have not been trying to "oneup" anyone here, unlike you. I have merely tried to explain myself, despite your refusal to accept what I have to say.