CEDRUS LIBANI 
19 
Father Jerome Dandini, an Italian Jesuit, who was sent to the Holy Land in the quality of Apos¬ 
tolic Nuncio, by Pope Clement VIII., in the year 1599, published a small volume devoted to Mount 
Lebanon and the Maronites, but says very little about the Cedars. He set off in May 1599, an d 
arrived at Tripoli on the 29th of August, whence he went to the Grove and counted twenty-three trees; 
but another of the company only made them twenty-one.* 
The next authority is an English one, an old book by W. Biddulph, intitled “The Travels of Four 
Englishmen and a Preacher (London, 1612). They bring the number of Cedars up again to twenty-four. 
Monsieur de Breves, who saw the Cedars in 1605, also found them twenty-four in number, “in a 
tolerably spacious situation, stretched between the summits of the mountains, but rugged and full of mounds, 
scattered here and there. ”t 
Monsieur de Beauvais, a French nobleman, is'the next in date who speaks of the Cedars; but he 
does not appear to have seen them, nor does he give the date of his visit, but it must have been shortly 
before 1615. He visited the Patriarch of Mount Lebanon ; but although so near, had not the curiosity 
to go to the Cedars, notwithstanding that he was pressed to do so by the Patriarch. “We stayed one 
day in this house, and afterwards the said Patriarch wished to conduct us himself fifteen miles beyond 
it, to shew us twenty-three Cedars, which he assured us to have been there in the time of Solomon.”! 
A few years later, William Lithgow, in his curious peregrination in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
tells how the Grove stood about 1614: “The daily interrogation I had here (Tripoly) for a caravan’s 
departure to Aleppo was not to me a little fastidious, being mindful to visit Babylon. In this my expecta¬ 
tion, I tooke purpose with three Venetian merchants to go to the Cedars of Lebanon, which was but a 
day’s journey thither.When we arrived to the place where the Cedars grow, we saw but twenty- 
four of all, growing after the manner of Oke trees, but a great deale taler, straighter, and greater, and the 
branches grew so straight out as though they were kept by art. . . . The nature of that tree is alwaies 
green, yielding an odoriferous smell, and an excellent kind of fruit like unto apples, but of a sweeter 
taste and more holesome digestion [!] The roots of some of the Cedars are almost destroyed by 
shepherds, who have made fires thereat, and holes wherein they sleep; yet neverthelesse, they flourish 
green above the tops and branches.’! 
Our next authority is the Rev. Father P. Philippius, a barefooted Carmelite Friar of the Order of the 
Most Holy Trinity, who visited the Cedars in 1629. He gives his account in very choice Latin, and 
describes them most accurately and clearly. “In Libanus,” says he, “several of our European trees are 
found. The Cedar is peculiar to it, a tree celebrated in Sacred Scripture for its incorruptibility and size, and 
especially mentioned because employed in making that most magnificent temple of Solomon, for which it 
was conveyed from Lebanon on floats by sea. It is almost at the top of this mountain that the Cedars are 
produced, which the natives call Arz, in a tolerably broad flat place, defended from the north .by the ridge 
of the mountain, and exposed to the south. There are one-and-twenty of the very large and oldest 
distinguishable; one had fallen a short time previously, and as yet appeared half burned; but, among the 
small ones, recently sprung seedlings are to be seen in every direction in the same plain.” II 
Three Norman gentlemen, Messieurs Fermanel, Fauvel, Baudouin de Lannay, and a Fleming, 
M. de Stockhove, are the next who have left a record of a visit to the Cedars. They were there in 1630, 
and there is an account of their journey published in 1670. They say: “We arrived at night at the place 
where are the Cedar trees, so renowned and so old, that many believe that they are of the time of King 
Solomon. In truth, nothing can be seen more antient than these trees : they have the trunk so large, that 
five persons could scarcely embrace one. . . . Some say that these trees cannot be counted, and that one 
* Voyage du Mont Liban, traduit de l’ltalian, da R. P. Jerome Dandini, 1675, p. 83. 
f Relation des Voyages de Monsieur de Breves tant en Grece, Terre Saincte et JEypte, qu’aux Royaumes de Tunis et Alger. Paris, 1628, p. 54-55. 
X Relation Journaliere de Voyage du Levant fait et descrit, par haut et puissant Seigneur Henri de Beauvais. Nancy, 1615, p. 98. 
§ A most delectable and true Discourse of an admired and painefull Peregrination from Scotland to the most famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia, and Africke. By William 
Lithgow, Scotus , London. Printed by Nicholas Okes, and are to be sold by Thomas Archer, at his shop in Popeshead Place, neere the Royall Exchange. 1614, p. 2. 
. || Itinerarium Orientale. R. P. F. Philippi. Lugduni, 1649. 
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