Castagno dei cento cavalli - Jean-Pierre Houël

PSM V03 D337 Great chestnut of mount aetna

The Hundred-Horse Chestnut ( it, Castagno dei Cento Cavalli; scn, Castagnu dî Centu Cavaddi) is the largest and oldest known chestnut tree in the world. Located on Linguaglossa road in

Sant'Alfio Saint Alphys (in Italian: Sant'Alfio) or ( scn, Sant'Arfiu) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, about east of Palermo and about north of Catania. Saint Alphys borders the following mu ...

, on the eastern slope of Mount Etna in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. — only from the volcano's crater — it is generally believed to be 2,000 to 4,000 years old (4,000 according to botanist Bruno Peyronel from

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

). It is a

sweet chestnut ''Castanea sativa'', the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived ...

(''Castanea sativa'', family Fagaceae). ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' has listed it for the record of "Greatest Tree Girth Ever", noting that it had a circumference of 57.9 m (190 ft) when it was measured in 1780. Above ground, the tree has since split into multiple large trunks, but below ground, these trunks still share the same roots. The tree's name originated from a legend in which a queen of Aragon and her company of 100 knights, during a trip to Mount Etna, were caught in a severe

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...

. The entire company is said to have taken shelter under the tree. The Chestnut tree of Mount Etna
detailed account of the tree, its state and its surroundings, written by Wm. Rushton on June 29, 1871.

History

The tree is located in the wood of Carpineto, on the eastern slope of the Etna volcano, near zone D of the Etna park. Several authors of botany agree on its age but not on its age: it would have been between two and four thousand years and, according to the thesis of the Turin botanist Bruno Peyronel, it could be the oldest tree in Europe and the largest in Italy (1982). The first historical information on the Chestnut of the Hundred Horses is documented as early as the sixteenth century. In 1611 Antonio Filoteo spoke of it, while in 1636, in "Il Mongibello", Pietro Carrera majestically described the trunk and the tree "... capable of accommodating thirty horses inside". On 21 August 1745, a first act was issued by the "Court of the Order of the Royal Heritage of Sicily", with which the Chestnut of the Hundred Horses and the nearby Chestnut Nave were institutionally protected. This document is configured, by virtue of the historical period (late eighteenth century), among the first acts - if not the first ever - of environmental protection produced in Sicily.

Literary allusions

The tree and its legend have become the subject of various songs and poems, including the following Sicilian-language description by

Catanese Catanese is an Italian surname, meaning literally "Catanian", "from the city of Catania" or "from the province of Catania" (Catania is the capital of the Province of Catania, and is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy). Notabl ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

Giuseppe Borrello (1820–1894): Another poet from Catania in Sicily, Giuseppe Villaroel (1889–1965), described the tree in the following sonnet (written in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

): The 2018 novel ''

The Overstory ''The Overstory'' is a novel by Richard Powers published in 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company. It is Powers' twelfth novel. The book is about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction o ...

'' by American writer

Richard Powers Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel '' The Echo Maker'' won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.

References

External links

* {{Sicily Castanea Flora of Sicily Individual trees in Italy Italian folklore Tourist attractions in Sicily Oldest trees