The Cypress of Pirri Cemetery

The cemetery came second. Pirri's burial ground was consecrated on 8 November 1913 and this cypress was already standing on the site, more than two hundred years old by the reckoning of the Sardinian press that covered its protection in 2025. That makes it, on the published figures, the oldest tree on this page. It is also improbably heavy for its species. Italy's national register of monumental trees puts the trunk at 6.3 metres round, where a Mediterranean cypress normally goes up as a narrow dark column and stays that way for centuries. Cupressus sempervirens has been the tree of Mediterranean burial grounds since long before this one was planted: evergreen, so it never looks dead, and slow enough to outlast everyone buried beneath it. The unusual part here is the order of events. This tree did not arrive to mark the graves, the graves arrived around the tree, and generations of Pirri residents have used it as a landmark rather than a monument. Sardinia added it to the regional list of monumental trees on 21 January 2025, the same day as the fig on Via Roma. Pirri is a district about four kilometres out from the old centre, on a city bus route, and this is a working cemetery rather than a garden: visiting hours, quiet, and people there with a reason.