Try to imagine a Neapolitan gouache seen from the Posillipo hill or a photograph of the Roman countryside or another characteristic Italian landscape. Try to think of the element that best summarizes and contains all its beauty and ornament, not just artistic. And try to imagine what is in the foreground. It is undoubtedly the House pine, or rather the Pinus pine tree as correctly defined by the great naturalist and botanist Linnaeus.
This green "monument" that characterizes the entire Italian landscape heritage - which it is not by chance that the English call Italian stone pine and the French Pin d'Italia – is the title and subject of a precious book signed by Julia Caneva, full professor of Applied Botany at Roma Tre, already author of a well-known volume on the Botanical Code of Augustus referred to in the Ara Pacis in Rome. The Domestic Pine, we read in the volume, is written in the first person and tells of itself starting from its scientific connotations, from its history, from its "travel companions", i.e. the other plants that make up that wonderful fresco of colors and scents that characterize all the Mediterranean maquis.
Already in ancient Rome it was appreciated and widespread as a symbol of fertility. Subsequently, to arrive at the present day, in 1966 the question was asked by the then minister of tourism, Achille Corona, as to which was the tree that could best represent the national botanical beauties and traditions: among the many fierce competitors such as the 'olive tree or cypress, the Pine was chosen “… for the whimsical elegance and composure of lines, which breaks the profile calmor of the hills…”. With this definition he fully enters the overall heritage of Italian art which extends from canvases and sculptures and reaches the great visions of panoramas, to the point of making the latter almost a science and where Pino, in fact, has a place of all relief.
Giulia Caneva's volume takes us to the heart of many images of our country where the Pino assumes all its importance. First of all, as we have written, in the images, in the photographs, in the artistic vision and in the visual perception of many parts of Italy. Furthermore, the volume reminds us how much Pino, his name, has entered by force into custom, language and literature. For example, one of the most common national names is Giuseppe, hence the diminutive "Pino". As well as not remembering Pinocchio and his putative father, a carpenter who, although nicknamed "mastro Ciliegia" chose to give him the name of the pine seed, the pine nut, which in Tuscan is precisely called "pinocchio". Of the seed, in particular, we recall the medicinal properties and uses in the kitchen (one for all: Genoese pesto). Not to mention how this plant has fully entered modern literature with references ranging from Giovanni Pascoli to Giosuè Carducci, from Grazia Deledda to Italo Calvino and others. Finally, the book mentions its importance in the history of navigation when its wood was used in planking and for the large trunks of the "mast columns".
We are all indebted to this plant and, in the meantime, we thank the author of the volume who reminded us of it.
