What is the oldest tree in Lucca?
The oldest tree in Lucca is the Cedar of Lebanon in the Orto Botanico, planted in 1822 by Paolo Volpi, the garden's first director, which makes it 204 years old and two years younger than the garden around it. It is also one of the largest, at six and a half metres round the trunk. The seven holm oaks on top of the Torre Guinigi are the more famous trees, and the idea of planting them up there is far older, but the living oaks are undated replantings.
Italy's national register of monumental trees records girth, height and position but carries no age field at all, so every date on this page comes from the botanical garden's own planting records rather than from the register. Those records are unusually good, because the garden was founded as a teaching collection in 1820 by Maria Luisa di Borbone, Duchess of Lucca, and its directors wrote down what they put in the ground and when. They give 1822 for both the Cedar of Lebanon and the Corsican pine, 1830 for the magnolia, around 1850 for the redwoods, 1862 for the ginkgo, 1880 for the Balearic box and 1900 for the silver lime. The Torre Guinigi is the interesting exception. A tower crowned with trees appears in Giovanni Sercambi's chronicle of Lucca in the fifteenth century, so trees have grown up there for six hundred years, but the seven holm oaks living in that brick box today have been replanted more than once and no source will say when. Outside the walls the municipality has trees that may be older still, including a Lebanon cedar at San Pancrazio reported at around 200 years, but they are not part of this walk.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.