page_title: Kaditz Lime Tree
section_title: Historical depictions
hierarchical_section_title: Kaditz Lime Tree / Historical depictions
caption_attribution_description: Kaditzer Linde
context_page_description: The lime tree of Kaditz is a natural landmark situated in the churchyard of Emmaus Church in Kaditz, a district of Dresden in Saxony, Germany. The large-leaved lime tree is 20 metres high and is estimated to be between 500 and 1,000 years old. The girth of the trunk is about 10 metres. In 1818 the tree was badly damaged by a huge fire in the village, which caused the trunk to split in two. It developed an abnormal growth to compensate for the damage done by the fire. This lime tree has often been written about and depicted, especially in Germany, and has also been used as a case study in dendrology, the science of trees and wooded plants. With its large girth it was ranked among the biggest lime trees in Germany even in the 19th century. The Kaditz Lime is also said to have served as a kind of pillory in the Middle Ages. The German Tree Archive includes it in its list of the most significant trees in the nation, in which the most important criterion is the girth of the trunk measured at a height of 1 metre.
context_section_description: The interior of the Emmaus Church was redesigned in the Baroque style from 1750 to 1756 and a ceiling painting was added. The fresco depicts an apocalyptical angel with five candleholders. In the background there is an enormous tree, which appears odd due to its girth and size: it is thus supposed to depict the Kaditz lime tree. The copperplate engraving from 1782 is attributed to the artist Johann Christian Klengel and depicts the tree among the graves in the Kaditz churchyard and is the oldest known pictorial representation of the tree.
  During a fire in east Kaditz in 1802 the parsonage too was damaged, whilst the lime tree was once again barely touched. A lithograph from approximately 1802 by the artist Gustav Taubert shows the burned out parsonage with the lime tree and church in the background. In 1812 Napoleon's soldiers trooped through the village past the lime tree. An excerpt from page 128 of the book Dresden und das Elbgelände (Dresden and the area around the river Elbe), which was published in 1818 by the Association for the Promotion of Dresden and its Tourism, reads "An ancient lime tree in the churchyard".
caption: 1802 depiction next to the burned out church
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