Among the trees that European memory has loaded with poetic meanings, the ginkgo biloba occupies a singular place. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe made it a symbol of metamorphosis and unity in duality in his famous poem Gingo biloba (1815), fascinated by the leaf divided into two lobes that look like two wings ready to soar through the air.
This image returns, as in a poetic coincidence, in the ancient ginkgo of the Palais Campofranco in Bolzano, linked to the figure of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Sissi.
According to legend circulating in the farms of South Tyrol, on the day of his death in Geneva (Sept. 10, 1898), the leaves changed color in an unusual way: they took on a velvety shade of brown, ochre and golden yellow, as if nature itself wanted to participate in the grief.
In that autumn light, the leaves, bilobed like tiny wings, seemed to break away from the tree and fly in swarms toward Geneva. Thus the ginkgo-the tree of metamorphosis celebrated by Goethe-became, in the narrative tradition of the Alpine valleys, the place where nature became a memory, transforming its leaves into a living tribute to the beloved Empress.
On the ancient farms in South Tyrol, around Bolzano, the elders still tell a story around the fireplaces lit in winter, when the wind comes down from the mountains and the night seems longer than the others.
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They say that in the fall of 1898, when Empress Elizabeth of Austria, the beautiful and restless Sissi, was killed in Geneva at the hands of the anarchist Lucheni, something prodigious happened.
In the garden of the Campofranco Palace in Bolzano, where Sissi stayed during her rare happy seasons, grew a Ginkgo biloba that she particularly loved. She had donated it to the city and had wanted to plant it herself many years before. It was a tree with foliage as wide as a golden cloak, which the Empress called “my fan of the Orient,” because it reminded her of the freedom of travels to distant lands. Its leaves, divided into two lobes like a broken heart, seemed to her a symbol of a soul torn between duty and the desire to escape.
On the evening when news of his death reached the valleys, the sky above Bolzano was strangely still. No wind was blowing and the animals in the farms were restless.
Suddenly it happened.
The leaves of the ginkgo came off all at once, stormlessly and noiselessly, as if an invisible hand had shaken the tree. But they did not fall to the ground.
They opened into the air. And in the air they were no longer leaves, each leaf became similar to a butterfly wing and came to life. They were light wings, veined like velvet-colored brown, satiny black, with wine-red and old gold hues, with mysterious designs of eyes, of arabesques, of spots mottled with silver.
Thousands, tens of thousands. An entire tree turned into a swarm.
They all rose together in the valley sky.
The wind of the mountains, which had been silent until then, aroused as if called by that prodigy and took to propelling them. The swarm went over the Renon, stretched above the valley vineyards, glided along the Adige, over passes and glaciers, through forests and cities.
Those who saw them pass by told of a living sky, full of trembling wings, like an immense velvet cloth moving over the peaks.
For two days and nights they traveled like this, carried by the wind through mountains and valleys.
Their journey ended at Lake Geneva, just as the Empress’ coffin was leaving the Beau-Rivage Hotel, where the Empress had expired after the assassination attempt. The carriages advanced slowly, and the city was plunged into a grave silence.
The sky darkened. Butterflies descended in swirls on the pavement in front of the procession, forming a soft, trembling carpet of dark, shiny wings.
When the last carriage passed, the wings slowly returned leaves.
And the lake wind scattered them over the water.
In the farms of South Tyrol it is still told that the Bolzano ginkgo, the tree of the wandering empress, sent that day its last tribute to the one who had loved it.
Since then, when autumn comes too quickly to Bolzano, the leaves of the ginkgo tree in the Campofranco Palace fall all at once.
You have to look at them well.
Because – legend says – for a moment before they hit the ground, they still turn into butterfly wings.
Note on ginkgo with “butterfly wings” leaves
The legend of the ginkgo with butterfly-wing-like leaves, which in the tales of the farms of South Tyrol accompanies the memory of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, finds a surprising foundation in the very nature of the tree and the cultural history surrounding it.
Indeed, an ancient Ginkgo biloba, traditionally associated with Sissi, grows in the courtyard of Bolzano’s Palais Campofranco. The tree, now more than a century and a half old, has survived the transformations of the city and even the bombings of World War II, which severely damaged it. Even today, every autumn, it offers a spectacle that strikes anyone who observes it: its leaves take on a deep golden yellow color in a few days and then, often within a few hours, fall off almost all at once, forming a golden carpet in the courtyard.
The phenomenon is well known to botanists. Ginkgo has a special seasonal physiology: when the tree interrupts the flow of sap to the leaves, a separating layer forms at the base of the petiole, causing the leaves to fall simultaneously. If even a light wind is blowing at that time, the visual effect is extraordinary: the leaves twirl in the air and glide slowly, like small wings flickering in the light.
The suggestion is accentuated by the shape of the leaf itself. Ginkgo biloba possesses a fan-shaped leaf blade, divided into two symmetrical lobes; the veins radiate from the petiole in a pattern that closely resembles the structure of lepidopteran wings. For this reason, when the leaves fall and sway in the air, it is easy to have the impression of witnessing the flight of a swarm of golden butterflies.
This analogy between leaf and wing is not just a modern impression. It has deep roots in European culture. In 1815 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dedicated a famous poem from the West-östlicher Divan, entitled Gingo biloba, to the ginkgo. The poet had been struck by the tree’s bilobed leaf and made it a symbol of a mysterious unity in duality:
“Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen,
Das sich in sich selbst getrennt?
Sind es zwei, die sich erlesen,
Daß man sie als eines kennt?”
“Is it one living being that has divided into itself?
Or is it two who have chosen each other so that they are known as one?”
For Goethe, therefore, the ginkgo leaf represented the metamorphosis of natural forms: two parts that appear separate but belong to one life. It is therefore not surprising that the poetic imagination saw in it two wings ready to soar through the air.
In other cultural traditions, ginkgo is also associated with transformation. In Japan and China, the tree is considered a symbol of longevity and renewal, and the spectacle of the falling golden leaves is celebrated as one of the most striking manifestations of autumn. In the avenues and temples of the Far East, when the wind lifts the falling leaves, there is often the impression that the air is filled with myriads of tiny winged creatures.
This similarity has also been captured by contemporary artists. Some have even painted real ginkgo leaves by transforming them into butterflies, taking advantage of the natural shape of the bilobed lamina: the two lobes become the wings, the petiole the body of the insect, and the radial veins suggest the wing veins.
In the light of these natural and symbolic elements, the Alpine legend of Sissi’s ginkgo appears less fantastic than it might seem at first glance. When, on autumn evenings, the leaves of the tree come off all at once and the wind sweeps them into the city sky, it is easy to understand how the popular imagination could turn that golden whirlwind into a swarm of butterflies.
Thus the poetry of nature, the Goethean symbolism of metamorphosis and the historical memory of the empress meet in the same tree. And every year, when the leaves of the ginkgo fall and rest like wings on the pavement of the courtyard, it almost seems as if the legend comes alive again for a moment.
