The Cedar of Lebanon of the Principessa Jolanda Gardens
age unknownCedar of Lebanon
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.
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
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
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