The Hundred Horse Chestnut is the largest and oldest known chestnut

Chestnut

Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...

 tree in the world. Located on Linguaglossa road in Sant'Alfio

Sant'Alfio

Sant'Alfio is a comune in the Province of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about 160 km east of Palermo and about 25 km north of Catania...

, on the eastern slope of Mount Etna

Mount Etna

Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe, currently standing high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21 m higher than it was in 1981.. It is the highest mountain in...

 in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 — only 8 km (5 mi) from the volcano's crater — it is generally believed to be 2,000 to 4,000 years old (4,000 according to the botanist Bruno Peyronel from Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

). It is a Sweet Chestnut

Sweet Chestnut

Castanea sativa is a species of the flowering plant family Fagaceae, the tree and its edible seeds are referred to by several common names such Sweet Chestnut or Marron. Originally native to southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, it is now widely dispersed throughout Europe and parts of Asia, such as...

 (Castanea sativa, family Fagaceae

Fagaceae

The family Fagaceae, or beech family, comprises about 900 species of both evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs, which are characterized by alternate simple leaves with pinnate venation, unisexual flowers in the form of catkins, and fruit in the form of cup-like nuts. Fagaceous leaves are often...

). Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural 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

Kingdom of Aragon

The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain...

 and her company of one hundred knights, during a trip to Mount Etna, were caught in a severe thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...

. The entire company is said to have taken shelter under the tree.

Literary allusions

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

Sicilian language

Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...

 description by the Catanese

Province of Catania

Catania is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Catania.It has an area of 3,552 km², and a total population of 1,073,881 . There are 58 comunes in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Catania...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 Giuseppe Borrello

Giuseppe Borrello

Giuseppe Borrello was a Sicilian poet, who wrote mainly in Sicilian, and an Italian patriot.In 1837, at a time when Catania was experiencing a cholera empidemic, he was granted special emergency powers by the Bourbon government, but was relieved of his duties once his liberal views and attitudes...

 (1820–1894):

Sicilian	English
Un pedi di castagna	A chestnut tree
tantu grossu	was so large
ca ccu li rami so' forma un paracqua	that its branches formed an umbrella
sutta di cui si riparò di l'acqua,	under which refuge was sought from the rain
di fùrmini, e saitti	from thunder bolts and flashes of lightning
la riggina Giuvanna	by Queen Joanna
ccu centu cavaleri,	with a hundred knights,
quannu ppi visitari Mungibeddu	when on her way to Mt Etna
vinni surprisa di lu timpurali.	was taken by surprise by a fierce storm.
D'allura si chiamò	From then on so was it named
st'àrvulu situatu 'ntra 'na valli	this tree nestled in a valley and its courses
lu gran castagnu d'i centu cavalli.	the great chestnut tree of one hundred horses.

Another Catanese poet, Giuseppe Villaroel (1889–1965), described the tree in the following sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 (written in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

):

Dal tronco, enorme torre millenaria,

i verdi rami in folli ondeggiamenti,

sotto l'amplesso quèrulo dei venti,

svettano ne l'ampiezza alta de l'aria.

Urge la linfa, ne la statuaria

perplessità de le radici ergenti,

sotto i lacoontei contorcimenti,

dal suolo che s'intesse d'orticaria.

E l'albero - Briareo lignificato -

ne lo spasimo atroce che lo stringe

con catene invisibili alla terra,

tende le braccia multiple di sfinge

scagliando contro il cielo e contro il fato

una muta minaccia ebbra di guerra.