It was the spring—*brusis* in Greek. *Vrisi*, as it was later named, remains the site of the water that nourishes the roots of a plane tree—one that, according to local tradition, was brought by monks from the distant East. Whoever planted it, that tree still stands today in the territory of Curinga, part of a stand of plane trees that is botanically very rare. Standing over 30 meters tall, with a circumference of 15 meters—according to scientific measurements by the Giant Trees Foundation—and an estimated age of a thousand years, it is undoubtedly the widest and oldest plane tree in Italy, listed in the national register of monumental trees. Its trunk features a hollow at the base with an opening of over three meters—a sort of grotto where one can almost hear the tree breathing—while massive, long, exposed roots lend it an even more majestic appearance. Greek culture reveals the significance this plane tree held for the Basilian monks mentioned in local tradition. It was the tree beneath which Socrates and Phaedrus conversed along the banks of the Ilissos, under which Hippocrates taught his students on Kos, and the plant Xerxes loved so madly that he adorned it with jewels. It was the tree of thought, of healing, and of enduring beauty—a bridge between earth and God. Planted near the hermitage of Sant’Elia Vecchio, it may have represented an extension of that site, an expansion of the world and culture from which the monks had come. It was planted so that, like a blessing, it might outlast everything.