**1. Introduction**

No other tree or plant, with the exception of wheat, has had the same importance in the history of our species as the olive, capable of influencing nutrition, culture, and religion and contributing to the birth of modern Mediterranean civilization [1]. The unmistakable gnarled and curved branches of olive trees have shaped the Mediterranean landscape and their fruits have provided sustenance to numerous civilizations, from the Middle East to Greece, from Italy to Spain. "Two are the liquids particularly pleasing to the human body: inside the wine, outside the oil," wrote Pliny the Elder in his famous treatise Natural History. "Oil is an absolute necessity and man was not wrong in dedicating his efforts to obtain it."
