13th-century Italian had both versions available. For the tree, "olivo" or "ulivo," and for the fruit, "oliva" or "uliva." In Tuscany, for example, the "ulivo" version was favored, while in Emilia, it was "olivo."
In technical vocabulary, in arboriculture or botany texts, there has been a gradual shift from "ulivo," which was the most widely used version, to "olivo." It could be said that the two versions have always coexisted. Until the 1800s, however, Italian and the various dictionaries leaned more towards the term "ulivo." In the 1900s, by contrast, the term "olivo" is reported more and more frequently.
Today, although our language still retains the term "ulivo," both dictionaries and scientific texts refer to it as "olivo."
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