Literary Trees – Pirandello’s Pine Tree

In Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano novels, Salvo Montalbano loves to sit under a Saracen olive tree to mull over the tricky cases he is trying to solve. He is especially likely to visit the tree after eating an enormous lunch served at one of his favourite Sicilian restaurants. And then, in one of the novels called The Scent of Night, he finds that someone has uprooted the tree in order to build a cheap vacation rental home. He is devastated. Saracen olive trees have extremely gnarled trunks and dropping boughs. The word ‘Saracen’ refers to Arab rule in Sicily from the 9th century AD, so the name suggests the tree may be hundreds of years old. Inspector Montalbano’s love for this tree is a symbol of his love for the island of Sicily and its people.

Montalbano’s beloved tree is a tribute from one Sicilian author to another. Camilleri had huge admiration for Nobel Prize winning writer Luigi Pirandello (best remembered today for his play Six Characters in Search of an Author), who had a much-loved ancient pine tree in the grounds of his home. He went to it for literary inspiration, to chat with friends and to paint and relax. He wanted his ashes to be buried beneath the pine tree, which was a short stroll from his house in the town of Caos in Sicily.