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PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK "ALBERI STRAORDINARI D'ITALIA" IN ROME

“Alberi straordinari d’Italia” (“Extraordinary Italian trees”) is a big volume containing illustrations and written by the association “Associazione Patriarchi della Natura in Italia” (Association of Nature Patriarchs in Italy), headed by Sergio Guidi. This book is supported by the Bracco Foundation (Milan), edited by Pearson and distributed by Bruno Mondadori.

Sergio Guidi and Andrea Gulminelli illustrate the “monumental trees”, Sergio Guidi himself talks about “Archaeobotany, ethnobotany and botanical geography”, Vittorio Emiliani describes the “Italian agricultural landscape” with a summary on myth and history of the trees from the archaic period all the way to the present. Guidi also wrote an essay on “the trees of the past for our future” where he illustrates the successful experimentations of numerous gardens made with the “twins” of the most important monumental trees in Italy (Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Cesenatico, Ferrara, FICO Bologna, Rome, etc.), very rustic trees able to resist to diseases and climate change. Last but not least, Domenico Plauto Battaglia deals with a peculiar topic, that is to say, the link between trees and light.

The publication of “Alberi straordinari d’Italia” took place in Rome at the Ministry of Agriculture in the prestigious Cavour room. As part of the audience there were journalists and people with a keen interest on the environment.

Along with the authors there were Alessandra Stefani (General Director of the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies), Massimiliano Atelli (Head of the Committee for the development of public green of the Ministry for the Environment), Fulco Pratesi (WWF’s honorary president), Maria Cristina Cedrini (Councilor of Bracco Foundation’s Management Committee), Vittorio Emiliani (journalist and president of the Committee for Beauty)

The last book of the Association of Nature Patriarchs was presented on 9^th May 2019 in Rome. This volume summarises thirty years of research carried out by the team of Sergio Guidi, Andrea Gulminelli, Gabriele Piazzoli, Domenico Plauto Battaglia and other colleagues that have conducted censuses on monumental trees across the country, cataloguing and taking photographs of each one. The trees catalogued add up to 12,000 and they date back to hundreds and thousands of years ago. Detailed censuses in Emilia Romagna (1,200 monumental trees) and in the province of Rome (600 tree species).