THE HORSE CHESTNUT OF THE CHURCH OF SAN BERNARDINO – TRIORA (IM)

FEATURES OF THE SPECIES

Tree with domed foliage, it reaches the height of 20 metres, sometimes even 30 metres or more, with a straight shaft. The grey-reddish bark, when mature, descales in large chips. The leaves are characteristically formed by 5-7 oblanceolate leaflets of differing dimensions, palmately disposed at the tip of a long petiole.

Its flowers are hermaphrodite, zygomorphic, and fragrant. They are disposed in pyramidal and erect panicles up to 20 cm long. Its fruit is 3-6 cm and it is constituted by a by a roundish spiky capsule, initially light green and then brown, which contains 2-4 seeds very similar to the chestnuts. It is a species native to south-eastern Europe, grown as an ornamental plant in various European and Asian regions.

HISTORICO-CULTURAL INFORMATION

The church was built at the beginning of the fifteenth century in a strategic position, along the way Italian pilgrims used to reach Provence and Avignon. Inside, it bears valuable fifteenth-century frescoes representing heretics, demons and unrealistic human figures. It was dedicated to Saint Bernardino da Siena, an important Franciscan friar of the fifteenth century who, in his preaching travels, also reached Triora, at the time an important centre in the Ligurian inland and a cornerstone of the Republic of Genoa.