IL CANTO DEL PRINCIPE

This is a real-life exemplary and romantic story that reads like a fairy tale, with a strong ecological message. That of a special tree that was a symbol of nature's greatness the Prince, the tallest tree in Europe that fell over in a devastating storm that hit the southern part of Trentino a few years ago and came back to life thanks to the care of the community of its plateau.

At 54 metres high, the Avez del Prinzep towered over the forests of the Cimbrian highlands in southern Trentino for 250 years. The Prince was a white fir, with a hollow trunk and polycorn crown, an 'outsized', sacred being, the destination of incessant pilgrimages by hikers, botanists, scholars, enthusiasts and the curious. There was, in that silver fir, an intangible element that had to do with the inhabitants of the Plateau, the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. That is why after its fall during a disastrous storm in November 2017, newspapers and television stations announced that the plateau had lost its soul. But they were wrong. The soul, a certain kind of soul, took shape again from that noble wood thanks to the hands of a master luthier who created a string quartet that would contain it for centuries to come, resonating in concert halls all around the world. 'The magic of a tree that dies and rises again, from the rustling of leaves to the sound of a violin. An enchantment.' Corrado Augias Marco Albino Ferrari is one of Italy's leading mountain experts. In 2002 he created the 'Meridiani Montagne Review'. He is the author of Frêney 1961. La tempesta sul Monte Bianco (1996, new edition 2021), La via incantata (2017) and Mia sconosciuta (Premio Itas, 2020) with Ponte alle Grazie. For Einaudi he published In viaggio sulle Alpi (2007), Assalto alle Alpi (2023), and edited the anthology Racconti di pareti e scalatori (2011).