The Cypress of Carducci's Tomb

A cypress stands directly over the granite tomb of Giosue Carducci in the Certosa di Bologna, one of the tallest and most immediately recognisable trees within a cemetery field otherwise dominated by low funerary monuments, and it has become known simply as the poet's own cypress. Carducci, who became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1906, is buried in a section of the Certosa reserved for his memory, his surname cut into a single block of stone with no other ornament, a deliberate austerity that the cypress towering behind it makes considerably more dramatic than the monument alone would manage. The Certosa itself, a working cemetery since 1801 built on the site of a 14th century Carthusian monastery, is regarded as one of Europe's great open-air museums of funerary sculpture, some 30 hectares holding roughly 6,000 works of historic and artistic interest, and cypress plantings run throughout its oldest sections, including a double row leading to the monastery's original entrance. This particular tree earns its own name for standing over the one grave in the entire complex that draws readers rather than art historians.