Sabina is a land strongly dedicated to the production of extra virgin olive oil. And it’s not hard to see why. Even if you arrive by car in this area, your first sight will be filled with olive groves; olive groves as far as the eye can see.
You well be amazed by the incredible number of thousand-year-old olive trees found in the Sabina territory: there are at least twenty-four thousand specimens. These plants are still here today to testify the Sabina area’s vocation for olive oil production; not just an activity that came about a few decades ago, but an actual tradition whose roots date back to the distant past, at least since Roman times. Historical findings indicate that olive cultivation and olive oil production in Sabina began 2,600 years ago.
The thousand-year-old ‘Olivone’ in Canneto Sabino
In Canneto Sabino, located in the province of Rieti in the Lazio region, the olive tree called “di Numa Pompilio” is still in excellent condition because tradition has it that it was the second King of Rome, between 715 and 673 BC, to plant this thousand-year-old olive plant specimen. The scientific studies carried out on the plant, however, actually date it a little earlier in time: it seems, in fact, that the ‘Olivone di Canneto’ is only – so to say – a thousand years old.
Nevertheless, fact is such an olive tree specimen does not go unnoticed, with its thirty metre long foliage, at a height of fifteen metres – that’s roughly a five-storey building! – with a trunk diameter that measures seven metres on average.
The trunk of ‘Olivone’ has a considerable size cavity, caused by a disease that affected the plant and which today is progressively shrinking; proof that the specimen is repairing its tissues, despite being a thousand years old.
In its golden age, the production of this plant was 12 quintals of olives, equal to roughly 150 kg of olive oil!
Since 1876, the tree has been owned by the Bertini family, who take care of it with love and allow anyone who wants to take a selfie with this giant tree to visit.
The thousand-year-old ‘Olivone’ in Palombara Sabina
Not too far from the village cemetery in the Palombara territory, is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of all the Sabina olive trees: a specimen that has reached the venerable age of three thousand years old. To date, it is the oldest known olive plant in the entire Sabina area and, without a doubt, also among the oldest in the world.
It is loved by the Palombara people to the point that it is considered a family member. So much so that the local tradition has it that newlyweds make a stop here for a souvenir photo, regarded as a blessing to the couple.
The ‘Olivone’ in Palombara, with its almost ten metre trunk diameter, is a natural monument. Today, it’s surrounding area is fenced and protected, safeguarding it from accidents such as the incident it was involved in during the 1950s, when a concrete mixer ran into it, depriving it of a fifth of its trunk.
An educational panel is placed on the spot describing its history, and details its incredible measurements, so that visitors can grasp the uniqueness of what they see.
These olive trees, and the others, whether secular or thousand-year-old, found in the Sabina area, are there to tell us a story. Which is also the story of a land, rural and bound in an ancestral way to its values. A land linked to the rhythms, gifts and cycles of Nature. This is why these trees are considered monuments, living monuments, like living beings; living from an age that we will never be able to touch, but for which, paradoxically, we have the responsibility to preserve and protect.
