The profile of the city of Biella has changed forever: next to the fifteenth-century Tower erected by Sebastiano Ferrero in the early sixteenth century, until a few days ago stood a monumental Cedar tree, presumably planted around 1870. On the night of 12 July lightning struck the cedar tree and blew it into a thousand fragments.
A plant just under 40 meters tall but with a majestic, imposing bearing, of which all that now remains is a strut about 10 meters high. The crash not only broke the trunk in two: most of the mighty branches have been detached right at their emergence, so that a trunk with many stumps thus remains. So much is the mass of fronds, crumbled branches covering the ground in a radius of about ten meters around the base that it is difficult to approach the stump.
The Tower, built by Sebastiano Ferrero, represents, for Biella and its territory, the main landmark, a characteristic, unmistakable feature of the city's profile. Since the late nineteenth century, the cedar tree from decade to decade has grown to the height of the tower and become, in turn, a familiar and distinctive feature of Biella's landscape. And its presence ended up saving the Tower because the lightning struck at its tip, sparing the great Renaissance monument.
Foto @alessandra.corra
Archivio Regione Piemonte
