The Cedar of the Belvedere

Sources disagree by a century and a half on how old this cedar is, and the disagreement is the most honest thing anyone can say about it. One detailed study of Villa Doria Pamphilj's tree collection places its planting in the 1600s, when the Pamphilj family first laid out the estate, which would make it over 300 years old. The tree's own entry in Italy's national monumental tree registry gives a calculated age closer to 150 years, with a trunk 4.6 meters around and a height of 30 meters. Both figures describe the same cedar, shading the belvedere terrace above the Lago del Giglio in Rome's largest public park. What is not disputed is the setting: Villa Doria Pamphilj was a private hunting and pleasure ground until the Italian state expropriated it in 1965, and this cedar, whichever planting it dates to, has shaded cardinals, princes and now Sunday joggers from the same terrace above the same ornamental lake. It is listed as the only individually registered monumental tree in a park that otherwise counts its history in family names rather than tree ages.