24.70

PART III

ARBORETUM ANI) FRUTICETUM.

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Remarkable Cypresses. Perhaps the oldest tree of which there is any recordin the world is the cypress of Soma, or Somma, in Lombardy. This celebratedtree, of which fig. 2325. is a portrait (from an original drawing kindly sent to usby Signor Manetti of Monza), is generally supposed to have been planted theyear of the birth of Jesus Christ, and on this account is treated with great re-verence by the inhabitants of that part of Lombardy where it grows ; but theAbbe Beleze informs us that there is an ancient chronicle extant at Milan,whichproves that it was a tree in the time of Julius Caesar, u. c. 42. (See p. 169.)