The Cedar of Lebanon of the Principessa Jolanda Gardens

age unknownCedar of Lebanon

Cedar of LebanonNobody has published a photograph of this tree under a licence we can use. Send us yours and it goes on this page.
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Which one is it? A tiered cedar in the Principessa Jolanda gardens, on the Capodimonte hill. The plane that stood on the same staircase came down in a 2022 storm, so it is now the big conifer there.

A monumental plane on this same staircase was destroyed by a storm in 2022. The cedar of Lebanon beside it is still standing, and confirming that was most of the work of getting it onto this page. It grows in the Giardini della Principessa Jolanda, a corner of the Real Bosco di Capodimonte laid out in the 1830s on the hill above the city. Both registers that carry it, the national one and Campania's own card, agree on the measurements to the centimetre: 4.18 metres round, 18 metres tall. Neither gives an age, and the garden's own layout date is not the tree's, so the years stay blank rather than borrowed. What settled it was the museum's own page about the garden, written after the 2025 restoration reopened it, which names a splendid cedro del Libano among the specimens standing in the grounds today. Present tense, current document, which is exactly the evidence an old register entry cannot give you. Cedars of Lebanon were the status tree of nineteenth-century European estate planting, imported for the flat tiered silhouette that reads as ancient long before the tree is. This one has had nearly two centuries of Neapolitan sun to grow into that shape, and it is a short walk from the palace itself if you are coming for the Caravaggio.

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The button above opens directions in your maps app. Bus C63/178 to Capodimonte, or 20 min uphill walk from Museo Nazionale metro

Species
Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani)
Age estimate
Location
Giardini della Principessa Jolanda, Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Napoli (Capodimonte)
Access
Free, inside the Real Bosco di Capodimonte's outdoor grounds, in the Giardini della Principessa Jolanda section reached by the monumental staircase off Salita di Capodimonte
Getting there
Bus C63/178 to Capodimonte, or 20 min uphill walk from Museo Nazionale metro

Trees nearby

The Cretan Palm That Came Back From a Warabout 105 years · 340 m awayThe Robust Eucalyptus of Capodimonte19th century, undated precisely · 350 m awayThe Yew of the Garden of the Princesundated; the garden around it dates from about 1840 · 460 m away
Curious what else is standing in Naples? See all 22 remarkable ancient trees in Naples or find out what the oldest tree in Naples is. It is a Cedar of Lebanon; see every cedar of lebanon on the site.
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