The City of Rome’s proposal to remedy the blinding expanse of Piazza dei Cinquecento—nearly five hectares of desolate asphalt in front of Termini Station—lasted just two days. The idea was for a “bioclimatic tree,” an artificial evaporator intended to replace the felled trees and provide some relief from the heat to the hundreds of thousands of people who pass across that scorching expanse every day. Here’s the bioclimatic tree to beat the heat: the green “air conditioner” in Piazza dei Cinquecento. That’s how some Roman newspapers headlined the story, referring to the new project by Mayor Gualtieri’s “yellow-helmeted” administration. It’s not a pharaonic project, but it’s still estimated to cost a hefty 500,000 euros—and that’s for a temporary structure (and, of course, routine maintenance costs never appear in the specifications of starchitects). This stroke of genius was conceived by Wittfrida Mitterer, director of the Master’s program in Bioarchitecture at the LUMSA Master School, and it harnesses the principle of adiabatic cooling—that is, the evaporation of water—to cool the surrounding area.
The role of the (fake) bioclimatic tree is therefore to do what (real) trees no longer want to do: cool the city. Although it must be said, the fact that trees no longer want to do this job stems solely from the fact that they are being cut down and are almost never replaced by new trees—at best, they’re replaced by shrubs and saplings barely big enough for a cramped balcony.
And the fact that Piazza dei Cinquencento has far fewer trees than the renderings of the redevelopment projects is not just the “common sense” observation of those who saw the preview photomontages and then had to face reality when passing through the square, but a finding you can also find mentioned in the press. Thanks to them (the renderings), there were too many trees—incompatible with the infrastructure of a subway line. Evidently, in urban planning firms, those who create the renderings are unaware of the infrastructure projects, but by now it can be taken for granted that every major project of the last thirty years has shown a staggering discrepancy between the trees presented in the previews and those actually planted.
In short, in Rome, the entire tree planting in Piazza dei Cinquecento has been wiped out, and they’d like to replace it with an artificial tree, because the pine trees apparently are incompatible with the metro line running beneath it. This “incompatibility” must have been unknown to the square’s original designers, since construction of the subway beneath it began for the 1942 World’s Fair and was inaugurated in 1955—all while majestic pine trees were being planted above it.
In any case, the issue is much more than a failed attempt to sell umbrellas to citizens after cutting down the trees: the care of green spaces—and in particular of trees in cities—risks becoming the sole distinguishing factor between center-left and center-right politics.
The French Case: Bordeaux vs. Montpellier
You might call that hyperbole. In reality, France’s leading daily, Le Monde, already confirmed this last May: “Mauvaises herbes” ou refuge de biodiversité: quelle place pour la végétation sauvage en ville? (“Weeds” or a refuge for biodiversity: what role for wild vegetation in the city?).
In other words, in France, right-wing mayors are against weeds, while left-wing mayors support biodiversity. This is a situation we’ve already seen signs of in Italy. Thomas Cazenave, elected mayor of Bordeaux in March 2026 for the Macronist party Renaissance, launched a “tidy green” campaign, ordering the removal of weeds. And judging by the opening photo in Le Monde, it was truly necessary. In Montpellier, governed since 2020 by Michaël Delafosse—who was reelected in 2026—a regime of “landscape anarchism” known as Quartier Sauvage is in effect, where weeds, including pellitory, run rampant. And children with asthma had better keep quiet.
In recent years, there has been much discussion about limiting weed mowing to promote biodiversity, combat heat islands, and protect the soil from drought, as the City of Milan wrote on its website as early as 2024.
Obviously, no one expects every flower bed to be a perfect green for playing golf, so limiting mowing in certain areas can have its advantages. However, we must take the overall urban landscape into account (no broken windows—it should go without saying), so no to a green for the 18th hole, but also no to weeds half a meter tall. Because neglecting urban green spaces in the name of biodiversity ultimately forces us to use far more treatments to eradicate insects like mosquitoes. So we limit mowing to benefit the environment and then compensate with massive insecticide spraying. And then, where the lack of mowing affects areas adjacent to traffic routes (whether for cars or bicycles makes little difference), overgrown vegetation can end up obstructing visibility… “It was coming from the right, but because of the biodiversity—which was a meter and a half tall—I didn’t see it.”
And finally, as we noted back in 2024—referencing two comedians certainly far from the center-right, Giovanni Storti and Maurizio Crozza—it is utterly hypocritical to stop mowing to promote biodiversity while simultaneously pollarding trees. This radical practice accelerates their decline. Pollarding often takes place after nesting has already begun. See also the recent case, again in Rome, of the subway construction work on Via Barletta, where a tree was saved in extremis precisely because nesting was already underway.
As an aside, the issue of pollarding trees once nesting has already begun raises another point of reflection, dear to historians specializing in Maoist China: Mao and the war on sparrows. From 1958 to 1962, Mao’s Chinese Communist Party launched the campaign to eliminate the four pests plaguing Chinese agriculture: rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The easiest to eradicate were the sparrows, which fed on flies and mosquitoes. It ended with the Great Famine of 1959–1961. So, weeds yes, trees (and sparrows) no? This is certainly no paradox—just look at the state of reforestation under the PNRR.
The Trees of the PNRR
One might accuse the author of a certain degree of fatalism, given that the rhetoric surrounding the PNRR has focused heavily on reforestation, especially in areas adjacent to urban centers. True, the numbers regarding the PNRR’s forest restoration projects are impressive. But they are just numbers—numbers of “plants planted,” that is. Not of plants that have taken root. And, above all, without specifying the species of trees planted. Anyone familiar with a nursery knows that a “more mature” tree with a few years under its belt costs more than a budget sapling—which, incidentally, may not even take root. The same principle applies to Christmas trees: a tree from a nursery with a well-developed root system costs more than the fir tree from the florist down the street, which is guaranteed to be dead by January 8.
Yet all the PNRR reforestation plans seem to have overlooked this variable. The focus is solely on planted trees—not on their survival. What is the survival rate of the PNRR trees? It’s impossible to compile statistics, since this wasn’t a measurable parameter in the contract. However, there are two emblematic cases in which 80% of the PNRR trees have died. One is Legnano, Milan, where 80% of the plants reportedly failed to take root, and the other is Acque Rosse in Rome, with an estimated mortality rate of over 80%.
In short, on paper there are millions of trees; in reality, just a few thousand saplings—and it’s far from certain they’ll survive the coming winter or the summer heat. One has to wonder whether it wouldn’t have been better to have these landscaping contracts managed not by the private sector—so dear to the European Union—but by the Forestry Carabinieri’s nurseries…
The enemy: the “ultra-fascist” Italian stone pine
Tree pollarding, PNRR projects, and even bike paths. Take the case of Rome, where on Via Panama, healthy Japanese cherry trees were cut down to make way for a bike path. These centuries-old cherry trees were donated by the then-Imperial Prince Hirohito during his visit to the capital in 1921 and will likely be replaced with less “noble” Oriental pear trees. Trees that, in addition to being less noble, will certainly be “smaller” than plants over a century old (which, at the time, were already quite large—capable of withstanding a sea voyage of several weeks). But they are certainly also Japanese and imperialist cherry trees—and therefore undoubtedly a bit fascist. And thus deserving of the chainsaw.
In short, everything is conspiring against the trees. In particular, those suspected of having party membership cards, such as Hirohito’s cherry trees, or—according to some, especially in Rome—the most “Lictor-like” of all trees: the stone pine, which has been cut down in Piazza dei Cinquecento and along Via dei Fori Imperiali.
The stone pine, Pinus pinea, seems to be the favorite victim of the hunt for tall trees in the city. First and foremost, it falls victim to reckless pruning: conifers shouldn’t be pruned because they don’t sprout new growth. Simply put, if you prune a lemon or olive tree, it will bear fruit and become more beautiful and lush than before. No one, however, prunes Christmas trees to make them greener for the coming Christmas. And so, in recent decades, we have witnessed reckless pruning of Pinus pinea as if they were linden trees. The sole result has been to make the plant suffer and become fragile.
And then they were accused of the gravest infamy: being rather fascist trees. The article The Parable of the Fascist Tree in Il Gazzettino last May sums up the context of the narrative surrounding pine trees quite well. It is a much more erudite and comprehensive article than its “clickbait” title suggests, but it too requires some clarification.
First of all, if there ever was a “fascist” tree, it was the eucalyptus—specifically the varieties Eucalyptus globulus, trabutii, and camaldulensis—which were widely planted during the land reclamation projects of the twenty-year Fascist era because they were believed to promote drainage and good health, and thus served as a natural antidote to the Anopheles mosquito. The eucalyptus tree had arrived in Italy from Australia in the late 19th century, but objectively speaking, it was under Fascism that it came to be used on a large scale. A tour of the various comprehensive land reclamation areas or a reading of Antonio Pennacchi’s work is all it takes.
The stone pine had actually been a quintessentially Italian plant for quite some time. So much so that in France, the term pin d’Italie is used as an alternative to pin parasol and pin pignon. And in English, it’s the Italian stone pine, or at most the Mediterranean stone pine. In short, travelers on the Grand Tour came to Italy and knew full well that the stone pine was part of the Italian landscape even two centuries before the March on Rome. Not to mention that the stone pine is, “in its own way,” another part of Italian food and wine culture: have you ever wondered where the pine nuts in so many recipes—pesto first and foremost—come from? And it seems pesto was already in use before the March on Rome…
Certainly, as Alessandro Marzo Magno and Alessandra Viola—author of Piante da record—point out, trees also serve as symbols of identity. Just as the Habsburg Empire planted Pinus niger in its Italian territories, so too did Fascism plant Pinus pinea. It’s impossible not to recall one of Ottorino Respighi’s masterpieces, the symphonic poem I Pini di Roma. And while I pini di Roma dates from 1924 (with a triumphant finale, I Pini della Via Appia, in which many see the Blackshirts marching on Rome… certainly Respighi was an Accademico d’Italia and close to Fascism but never joined the party), yet if the symphonic poem was written in 1924, it is a sign that Rome was already full of pine trees before the advent of Fascism and that they were a powerful and widely recognized symbol of identity.
There is a reference to the element of health benefits (an aspect shared with the other tree dear to the fasces, the eucalyptus) in the fascist urban planning’s love for pine trees, particularly in summer camps and hospitals. But it almost seems like a superstitious aspect. What is often overlooked, however, is that ointments originally made from essential oils of turpentine (extracted from resin) and eucalyptus are still sold in Italian pharmacies today.
And another fundamental aspect of the health benefits of the stone pine compared to other trees—its ability to “provide shade”—is often overlooked. The Pinus pinea is evergreen, so it always provides shade, even when deciduous trees have not yet regrown their leaves after shedding them during the winter. The Pinus pinea is a perfect “sunshade”: an umbrella of pine needles that provides shade but lets the sun through when it’s low on the horizon. In an urban pine forest, unlike one made up of holm oaks, elms, linden trees, or magnolias, there’s never any humidity. That’s why the pine is healthy—because it provides shade but generates little humidity.
And for architectural historians, the stone pine has another plus. Because it wasn’t just Mussolini, the Forestry Militia, or the National Combatants’ Association for Land Reclamation who wanted Pinus pinea everywhere. Behind the Pinus pinea—during, and it’s worth emphasizing, after the Fascist era—there was a first-rate academic debate led by Maria Teresa Parpagliolo.
Maria Teresa Parpagliolo’s Pines, from the EUR to the Postwar SGI Neighborhoods
You know how the left-wing intelligentsia gets upset because there aren’t enough women in history? Well, it would be worth reminding them to remember Maria Teresa Parpagliolo (1903–1974), well known to those who study that great era of Italian architecture, and certainly less so to those who do nothing but complain about sexism. Of course, one might blame fascism for having relegated her to the Giardino fiorito column in Domus from 1930 to 1938, but in reality she was a landscape architect who had also trained with a renowned expert in the field, the British architect Percy Stephen Cane, between 1931 and 1932.
From a programmatic standpoint, the article Pinete e giardini in Domus 121 (1938) was decisive; in it, the use of Pinus pinea was primarily aimed at preserving the Italian Mediterranean landscape. Maria Teresa Parpagliolo’s approach was applied in the gardens of the Milan Triennale, in the gardens of Littoria (now Latina), in projects for the E42 highway, and at the Parks and Gardens Office of the City of Rome. But she was also active in the postwar period and appeared to be free of any nostalgia for the Littoria era. Married to the Englishman Shepard, a leading figure in the British Institute of Landscape Architects alongside Elena Luzzato (1900–1983)—Italy’s first woman to earn a degree in architecture (in the “highly fascist” 1925) and designer of the French war cemetery at Monte Mario, she continued after World War II to plant pine trees in the “speculative developments” of the SGI, the Società Generale Immobiliare.
Given the amount of greenery and the connection to the surrounding landscape, it seems odd to call them speculative developments, but that is how they were defined at the time by journalists at L’Espresso. Manlio Cangogni’s infamous 1955 article Corrupt Capital = Infected Nation used the then-ongoing construction of the Hilton Hotel in Monte Mario, Rome—whose garden (and associated pine grove) belonged to Parpagliolo—as a pretext.
And Parpagliolo ordered the planting of pine trees as part of SGI’s plans for the neighboring Balduina neighborhood or in the Viale Val Padana area. Evidently, for the “speculators” of the time, a tree-lined avenue was a plus for potential land subdivisions. She also had pine trees planted in the first phase of Casalpalocco, also developed by SGI. The slightly staggered pine trees on Via di Casal Palocco are not “wild” or “spontaneous” species but the result of a landscape design by Parpagliolo. And the SGI—the “speculators,” as is clearly evident from period photos—had large, well-developed trees planted, not some stunted, “budget” shrubs from the mall.
And this is the lesson from Maria Teresa Parpagliolo. Take a walk through a neighborhood with tree-lined streets designed back in the 1950s and compare the perceived temperature with some of the “stunt” designs by certain starchitects. And for those who fear that Italian stone pines are dangerous, harmful, or have delicate root systems, remember that all it takes is good design. As demonstrated by the recent case in Arezzo, where they were saved in a completely paved parking lot thanks to an ad hoc design that respected the roots.
Real Trees and Fake Trees
In closing, two observations. The first, a bitter one from the perspective of political communication, as seen in Le Monde regarding Bordeaux and Montpellier: what distinguishes a Macron-aligned mayor from a socialist one? The issue of weeds. We hope the Italian right is still far from such a minimalist milestone, but when we look at other issues that were once central—such as the issue of “gender”—after four years in government and many commendable individual initiatives, seeing projects like Oltre lo sguardo by the Italian Society of Pediatrics presented without so much as a flicker leaves part of the electorate deeply disheartened. It’s an issue (one of many) where we’ve acted like the heroic Dutch boy who plugs the hole in the dike with his arm: individual heroism and self-sacrifice, but no systematic action.
Let’s hope we don’t end up as the meme: “Conservatives are the progressives of twenty years ago,” and that the distinction between the two political ideologies isn’t limited to the weed issue.
Finally, the second observation concerns the attempt to install a (fake) bioclimatic tree that was supposedly better than the real tree in Piazza dei Cinquecento. As in all other cases of magnificent, progressive “it was all planned.” C.S. Lewis describes this well in That Awful Force (1945), where one of the antagonists is Dr. Filostrato, who wants to “liberate humanity” from the dictatorship of organic life.
“At the moment, I admit, we need forests for the atmosphere. But soon we’ll find a chemical substitute. And then, why have natural trees? I foresee only artificial trees all over the Earth. In fact, let’s clean up the planet.”
“Do you mean,” interjected a man named Gould, “that we won’t have any vegetation left at all?”
“Exactly. You shave your face—in fact, in the English manner, you shave it every day. One day we’ll shave the planet.”
“I wonder what the birds will think of that?”
“I wouldn’t even want birds. On the artificial tree, I’d like to have artificial birds that all sing together when you press a switch at home. When you’re tired of the singing, you turn them off. Consider the improvement again. No feathers scattered around, no nests, no eggs, no mess.”
No mess, no pine needles, no roots breaking through the asphalt. No chirping birds. And yet, these fake bioclimatic trees—including installation and maintenance—would cost much more than the domestic pine trees planted under the wise guidance of Maria Teresa Parpagliolo. Trees that, moreover, stood for decades until someone decided it was time to cut them down with a chainsaw. And one day, they’ll explain to us why.