The Holm Oaks of Giardini del Frontone

On 20 June 1859 papal Swiss Guards and the Antibes Legion came up the hill and sacked Perugia, and these oaks were already old. A local history piece in 2025 put the question directly, asking what the secular holm oaks of the Frontone saw that day, the last serious violence in the city before Italian unification. The gardens are older still. They were laid out from 1707 for the Accademia degli Arcadi, a literary society that wanted somewhere to hold its summer gatherings, on ground used for military drill since the 1400s and, long before that, as an Etruscan necropolis. The avenues of holm oak went in with the garden and were finished through the 1800s, along with the pool, the statues and the Arco del Frontone of 1791. Two of the oaks are individually listed in the national register, at 350 and 342 centimetres round and 15.5 and 21.5 metres tall, standing about 70 metres apart along the same avenues. The pin marks the gardens rather than one trunk, because the walk under the oaks is the thing here, not a single tree. Holm oak holds its leaves all year, so the avenues are dark and cool in August, which is exactly what the Arcadians wanted them for. The gardens are free, opposite the Abbey of San Pietro, fifteen to twenty minutes south of the centro storico on foot.