The Grandfather Plane of Parco della Tesoriera

Turin calls it il nonno, the grandfather, and at six metres sixty-five around it holds the widest trunk on the city's monumental tree register. The crown spreads twenty-five metres against a height of twenty-eight, which in a park this size means the tree is most of the view. The park was a private estate before it was a park. Aymo Ferrero di Cocconato, treasurer general to the Duke of Savoy, had the villa at its centre built in 1715, and the name Tesoriera comes from that office rather than from any family. The villa now holds the city's music library, so on a summer afternoon there is usually something being practised behind the windows while the plane does the shading outside. The register gives the age as over two hundred years, which is a band rather than a date. This is also the tree most often named when anyone in Turin is asked which is the oldest in the city. That claim is not settled anywhere and this page will not settle it either. What is documented is the girth, and nothing else in Turin comes close to it. It is three and a half kilometres west of the trees in the centre, out along Corso Francia, so it is a trip of its own rather than an extension of the walk through the Giardini Cavour and the Valentino. Tram 3 or 9 puts you at the gate.