Capsicum (Capsicum spp.), also called as pepper, is a main vegetable and spice crop originated in the American tropics and today cultivated all over the world for fresh, dried, and processing products. Around the genus Capsicum there is an increasing interest and fascination due to the considerable variation for several traits, which makes this crop extremely versatile and suitable for innumerable uses as food and non-food products. The genus Capsicum includes over 30 species, five of which (C. annuum, C. frutescens, C. chinense, C. baccatum, and C. pubescens) are domesticated and mainly grown for consumption. A large number of accessions of domesticated and wild species are stored in the world seed banks, representing a valuable resource for breeding in order to transfer traits related to resistances to various abiotic and biotic stresses as well for quality improvement. The recent advances in terms of genetic and genomic knowledge will help to unlock the potentiality of these resources. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the origin and history of the pepper, describing its economic importance, properties, and commercial market types
