Sleeping under the ‘monstrous’ plane trees in Natanz

In 1618, the Spanish Ambassador, García de Silva y Figueroa, travelled from Isfahan to Qazvin.  On the way, he stopped at an ‘Emansade’ where he was “strangely persecuted . . for the whole night by a sort of midge, which are so white and so small as to be imperceptible”. To avoid this, on the return journey he diverted via the small town of Natanz (now perhaps better known for its nearby nuclear facility).  Since no house had been booked for him to stay in, Figueroa spent the late night / early morning after his arrival sleeping in his carrying-litter, under a large plane tree.

In the morning, the Ambassador decided that the water which passed by “in big canals” made such an agreeable murmuring that he didn’t want to enter the town at all.  His tent was therefore erected under another plane tree, a little smaller than the first, on the banks of two streams.

Most of Figueroa’s party, however, including all of the camel drivers, stayed under a truly monstrous plane-tree, “under which from time immemorial have lodged all the caravans which came from Shiraz or Isfahan to Qazvin and Tabriz”.  Even at midday, with the sun right overhead, the huge branches of this tree apparently shaded an area of more than thirty paces size, and Figueroa describes seeing a caravan of 200 camels, horses and other beasts of burden easily accommodated in its shadow.

As Oriental plane trees can live up to 2000 years; I had originally thought that this monumental tree might be the same one shown above right, just at the front of the shrine.  However, this doesn’t fit with Figueroa’s description of ‘his’ plane-tree being 200 paces from the Shrine of Shaykh al-Samad; or with the Natanzi saying that the town traditionally stretched “az chenar ta menar” – from the plane tree to the minaret (of the shrine).

Instead, the local Cultural Service staff showed me another – once enormous – stump, now with just a few struggling leaves.  This is shown on a satellite map of the town, here, and might be in just the right location for Figueroa, and also perhaps for Shah Abbas when he stayed at a plane tree in Natanz on his walk in 1601 (look for Pay-i-Chenar Natanz on the map here).