Forlì

Forlì (Furlè in Romagna, Forum Livii in Latin, also called Forlivio, Furlì, or with similar variants, in old Italian) is an Italian town of 118,000 inhabitants, capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena in Romagna. It is the bishopric of the diocese of Forlì-Bertinoro.

It has been, since the beginning of the Kingdom of Italy, the capital of the province of Forlì, after the detachment from it of the district of Rimini which became an autonomous province, the remaining territory took the new name of the province of Forlì-Cesena.

The city, founded according to tradition in 188 BC, celebrated its 22 centuries of life in 2012-2013. The historian Sigismondo Marchesi, however, dates back to 208 BC.

 

Monuments and places of interest

Religious architecture

Abbey of San Mercuriale: basilica located in Piazza Aurelio Saffi, due to its central position and high bell tower it is considered the symbol of the city.
Cathedral of Santa Croce: it is the cathedral of Forlì and seat of the bishop of the diocese of Forlì-Bertinoro.
San Domenico: suppressed at the behest of Napoleon in 1797, the large church of San Giacomo Apostolo was the hub of the Dominicans in the city, who, as early as the fourteenth century, erected a convent which, after centuries of abandonment, has recently been restored and now it welcomes exhibitions and exhibitions of international level. It is also home to the Pinacoteca and the Civic Museums.
Basilica of San Pellegrino Laziosi, or Church of the Order of the Servants of Mary: famous sanctuary because it houses the mortal remains of San Pellegrino Laziosi, patron saint of those suffering from cancer, AIDS and incurable diseases in general. It was awarded the title of minor basilica by Paul VI.
Church of the Holy Trinity
Chiesa del Carmine: halfway along Corso Mazzini, the heart of the San Pietro district, it is known for its beautiful marble portal (15th century), by Marino Cedrini. Of fourteenth-century origin, it was completely renovated between 1735 and 1746 to a design by Giuseppe Merenda.
Church and Monastery of Corpus Domini
Church of San Biagio
Church of S. Antonio Abate in Ravaldino
Church of Sant'Antonio Vecchio
Church of Santa Lucia
Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione
Church of San Filippo Neri
Church of the Miracle or of Our Lady of Fire
Church of San Michele Arcangelo
Church of San Salvatore in Vico
Church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami
San Sebastian Church
Church of San Francesco Regis
Church of the Addolorata
Church of San Giorgio in Trentola
Franciscan Church of Santa Maria del Fiore
Church of Santa Maria Assunta della Pianta
Church of San Giuseppe Artigiano
Parish Church of Santa Maria in the Aqueduct
Church of Santa Maria del Voto
Church of San Giovanni Battista in Vico called "dei Cappuccinini"

 

Civil architectures

Palmeggiani house
Maldenti houses
Palace of the former aeronautical college
Post Office building
State Office Building
Palazzo Hercolani
Palazzo Paolucci de Calboli
Palazzo Paulucci di Calboli dall'Aste
Paulucci Square Palace
San Giorgio Palace
Merlini Palace
Morattini Palace
Sassi Masini Palace
Palace of the Lords of the Mission
Benzi Palace
Palazzo Savorelli Prati
Palazzo Monsignani
In the twentieth century, a large part of Forlì's architecture was marked by the interventions of Fascism. For this reason, the city participates, as leader, in the European project "ATRIUM", which has "the main objective of investigating and managing the architectural, archival and intangible heritage of the 20th century regimes, for the construction of a transactional cultural itinerary, with the aim of obtaining the recognition of "European Cultural Route".

 

Military architectures

Walls

As in many other Italian cities, in Forlì the city walls were almost completely razed to the ground at the beginning of the 20th century in order to free up new spaces for building and to allow the development of the city outside the ancient core of the city. The demolition of the walls was almost total, and only some sections of the ancient wall still survive. The freed space has provided the surface for the construction of road sections that today make up the ring roads.

 

Gates

Although no trace of it has remained, it is obvious to think that Forlì in the Roman era was surrounded by a defensive circle and that it was possible to enter the city through specific gates or at least through supervised crossings. It is not possible to investigate both the evolution and the structure of the primitive defensive circle, just as it is not possible to identify the defensive system in the early Middle Ages, if not to hypothesize, through the surviving local toponyms, the route of the walls and the location of the medieval gates . To cite an example, tradition handed down the name of Porta Merlonia, living in the name of the street that took its name from it, probable gate of the early medieval walls. However, it is necessary to specify that, with the passing of the ages and according to the needs of the moment, it was quite common to open new doors and close others, according to the needs. In doing so, the memory of many doors has been lost, of others the toponym remains and only of the most important and the most fortunate the name, description or structure remains.

According to the Descriptio Romandiolae of Cardinal Anglico de Grimoard in the city of Forlì sunt quatuor porte magistre, que custodiauntur: Ravaldini, Cudignorum, San Petri, Clavanie... But the ancient toponymy of Forlì included the names of other gates that Francesco Ordelaffi had pulled down or reinforce: Porta Merlonia, Porta San Biagio (later called Santa Chiara and closed in 1356 by Francesco Ordelaffi) and Porta della Rotta, all of these forming part of the ancient Roman defensive circuit. In the early Middle Ages, with the expansion of the walls, new gates were opened. The names of Porta Liviense, Porta di Santa Croce and Porta San Mercuriale are handed down.

There were two gates that opened to the west of the Morattini bridge, in the direction of Faenza: Porta Liviense (also known as Valeriana), which stood at the end of via dei Battuti Verdi and through which the ancient via Consolare passed, and Porta Schiavonia . The first was closed by Francesco Ordelaffi in 1356 during the siege of Albornoz and, on that occasion, the bridge that crossed the Montone river was also demolished. Neither the gate nor the bridge were ever reopened, so the ancient route of the consular road was diverted in the direction of Porta Schiavonia.

There are four most important gates, which have marked the city's history and are linked to the walls erected between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: Porta Schiavonia, Porta San Pietro, Porta Cotogni and Porta Ravaldino. Of these, only Porta Schiavonia has survived to this day.

 

St. Peter's Gate

Located on the road to Ravenna, it stood at the end of what is now Corso Giuseppe Mazzini, once called Borgo San Pietro. It had a real fortified fortress and in this Caterina Sforza and her children were held prisoner by the conspirators who had murdered Girolamo Riario.

The door opened onto one of the buttresses of the walls and the fortress, placed next to it, reinforced the surveillance of the door. The rocchetta, whose construction date is unknown, was the bulwark on the northern side of the city and already in the 14th century the gate stood with the name deriving from the nearby church of San Pietro in Scottis, now disappeared. In 1360 the gate was partially demolished by the arrival of Albornoz, while the fortress that housed Caterina Sforza remained active in 1488 after the murder of Riario ordered by the Orselli family. Landed again in 1741, only the keep of the fortress remained intact. It is known that in 1764 the actual gate was walled up and the entrance was directly through an opening made in the fortress which served as a civic gate. In 1862 the last remains of the gate and the rock were demolished to make way for the new urban gate, called Barriera Mazzini, which the engineer Callimaco Missirini, built at the expense of the municipality, designed in neoclassical forms and which was opened to transit on 5 June 1864. It was used as a waiting room for the tramway that linked Ravenna to Meldola and, from 1901, it was used as a post office. This gate was completely destroyed in the first aerial bombardment of the city in World War II on May 19, 1944 and was never rebuilt.

It is important to note that in earlier times the exit in the direction of Ravenna was via the Porta di Santa Chiara, of which today only a square dedicated to it remains.

 

Porta Cotogni

The gate stood on what was called Strada petrosa - then Borgo Cotogni, more recently Corso Vittorio Emanuele and currently Corso della Repubblica - and was to guard the road in the direction of Cesena. Until the first years of the 20th century it housed the customs gate, to then be replaced, during the twenty years, by the twin Bazzani and Benini buildings.

The chronicles recall how often the parades and solemn entrances into the city took place through the Cotogni gate; among these the entry of Julius II and the Riarios. Until 1825 the bust of Cardinal Stefano Augustini was placed near the door, now located in the art gallery.

The Barrier and the annexed buildings were built to a design by the architect Giacomo Santarelli in 1825, following the demolition of the ancient Porta Cotogni, and assumed the name of Barriera Vittorio Emanuele with the function of customs gate.

In 1906, with the start of excavations for the construction of the aqueduct systems, the remains and foundations of the tower and the nearby fortified areas were discovered.

 

Porta Ravaldino

It was the door that opened towards San Martino in Strada and, from there, towards Florence. The gate was located at the end of the current Corso Diaz, but until the 1300s the walls were further back and therefore the gate was located about halfway along the current course and was called Porta Merlonia. Between the 19th and 20th centuries it also had the name of Barriera Aurelio Saffi.

At the end of Corso Diaz, on the left side, there was a fortress, called Rocca Vecchia, because it was later demolished with the exception of a tower that survived until the 1600s. It is probable that he was also called Ravaldino, hence the name of the gate and the fortress, which still exists today, and which is called Rocca di Ravaldino. Different sources state that the name derives from the castle that once stood in the current hamlet of Ravaldino in Monte, about 10 km from the city.

According to Novacula's chronicle, the gate was built in 1494 at the behest of Caterina Sforza who entrusted the council of elders with the execution of the work. The construction of the gate, with the tracing of a ditch that reached up to the Torre dei quadri, became necessary on the occasion of the camp set up by the French near San Martino and in other nearby hamlets.

The door was then left to fall into disuse and, no longer subject to maintenance, began to collapse. In the earthquake of 1870 it suffered further damage and, having become unsafe and dangerous, it was decided to knock down the central part. The buildings necessary to keep the customs offices active were left standing, replaced by the new barrier, called Barriera Saffi, built in 1874 to a design by the engineer Gustavo Guerrini.

At the turn of the thirties, the barrier was also demolished to arrange the building according to the lines of the master plan which provided for an expansion of the city beyond the boundaries of the old wall.

 

Porta Schiavonia

The only door that survived the time guarded the road in the direction of Faenza. In the past it was flanked by towers that protected it. It is probable that it was built on the site where the ancient Roman city also opened its road in the direction of Faenza, even if it has been remodeled and rebuilt several times. The current structure dates back to 1743 although some structures were demolished in the early twentieth century, such as the entrance hall behind it.

 

Other places of interest

Piazza Aurelio Saffi
At the time of the Roman forum, Piazza Aurelio Saffi was just a large space on the edge of the centuriation, along the Via Emilia towards Rimini.

It became, as it still is today, the central place of the city in the Middle Ages, with the name of Campo dell'Abate (the reference is to the Abbey of San Mercuriale) and then of Piazza Maggiore.

After the unification of Italy, it was dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele II and later to Aurelio Saffi, replacing the column of the Madonna (moved to the cathedral) with a monument dedicated to Saffi. At the end of the Second World War, during the permanence of the Anglo-American troops in Forlì (following the liberation of the city from the Nazi-fascists), the square was renamed St. Andrew's Square ("piazza di S. Andrea"). With the return to normality, the war damages were healed and the monument to Saffi, destroyed during the bombings, was restored.

The result is a square that Antonio Paolucci has defined as "a metaphysical scenario à la Giorgio De Chirico".

Overlooking the square:
The Romanesque Church of San Mercuriale, which is, together with its very high bell tower, the symbolic monument of the city
The Post Office building
The Palazzo Comunale, with walls full of history and art
The Palace of the Podesta
The Albertini Palace.

Street of the Towers
This is the road that connects Piazza Saffi with Piazza Ordelaffi and Piazza del Duomo, skirting the northern side of the Palazzo del Comune. Traveling eastwards, it grants a suggestive view of the Abbey of San Mercuriale, while, in the other direction, the road overlooks the Church of Corpus Domini, with the adjacent Monastery.

At the Palazzo della Prefettura, on the same side, the street opens onto Piazza delle Erbe, with its agricultural food market.

Piazza del Duomo and Piazza Ordelaffi
Piazza del Duomo/piazza Ordelaffi: the two adjoining open spaces are dominated by the building of the Duomo, formerly the church of Santa Croce, the city's cathedral.
To the north of Piazza Ordelaffi is the imposing Palazzo Piazza Paulucci or Paulucci-Piazza, from the name of the two ancient noble families that already owned it, now the seat of the Prefecture: it is a 17th century palace built in order to recall the Palazzo del Lateran and the Palazzo Farnese, in Rome.
In the center of Piazza del Duomo stands the votive column of the Madonna del Fuoco, protector of the city; it was originally erected in Piazza Saffi, from where it was moved at the end of the 19th century to make way for the memorial monument of the Forlì patriot Aurelio Saffi.
On 1 May 2007, a part of Piazza del Duomo took the name of Piazza Giovanni Paolo II, in memory of the visit that the Pope made to Forlì on 8 May 1986.

Course of the Republic
Corso della Repubblica, perhaps the main modern road of the city, constitutes the branch of the Via Emilia towards the east inside the historical centre. It is the backbone of the district traditionally called "Borgo Cotogni" for an ancient settlement of the Goths (from "Gotogni") who had settled there in the fifth century. It looks like a long straight road with a modern look, at the end of which you can see the obelisk of the war memorial in piazzale della Vittoria. In the 1930s it was called Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
Right at the beginning of the Corso, almost still in Piazza Saffi, you can see the beautiful bulk, with an elliptical plan, of the Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, better known as the Church of the Suffragio.
There also stands, a little further on on the opposite side, the baroque church of Santa Lucia, protector of sight and celebrated on 13 December.
The municipal library (with the historic Piancastelli collection) and the headquarters of the main municipal museums also overlook it, including the art gallery in the imposing Palazzo Merenda, formerly the seat of the ancient city hospital. Also in the Palazzo del Merenda in the rooms of the Albicini armory are visible frescoes (1924) by the Forlì painter Francesco Olivucci (1899-1984).
In Corso della Repubblica there is also the prestigious Higher School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators, a faculty of the University of Bologna.
Perhaps the only complex built in Forlì after the war by an international master of architecture is the Hotel della Città et de la Ville with the Centro Studi Fondazione Livio e Maria Garzanti. It is the work of the Milanese architect Gio Ponti commissioned by Aldo Garzanti, the famous publisher. Designed in 1953 and finished in 1957, with its inverted slopes, hexagonal windows, open spaces and the breath between the bodies, it is an icon of the fifties.

Corso Giuseppe Mazzini
This avenue, a street of arcades and shops, connects Piazza Saffi with Via Ravegnana (for Ravenna), to the north, where the Porta di San Pietro once stood. The ancient church of San Pietro in Scottis, now disappeared, a refuge for Scottish pilgrims, gives its name to the district "San Pietro".

This avenue, a street of arcades and shops, connects Piazza Saffi with Via Ravegnana (for Ravenna), to the north, where the Porta di San Pietro once stood. The ancient church of San Pietro in Scottis, now disappeared, a refuge for Scottish pilgrims, gives its name to the district "San Pietro".

As soon as you enter the Corso, coming from Piazza Saffi, after the Palazzo degli Uffici Statali, you will find the Torre Numai in a street on the left, a reminder of an ancient noble family.
Important is the Church of the Carmine, which houses the Carmelite convent: the entrance has a valuable frieze in Istrian marble, originally an embellishment of the entrance to the Cathedral.

Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi
This is the longest course, which from Piazza Saffi arrives at Porta Schiavonia and forms the part of Via Emilia towards the west, i.e. towards Faenza and Bologna, crossing the oldest area of the city, where notable stately buildings have been preserved to this day. It is the oldest street in the city, around which Forlì began to develop. The name "Schiavonia", still extended to the entire district (the old "Borgo Schiavonia"), derives from the memory of the slaves from Forlì deported to Spain by the barbarian Alaric and freed by the bishop Mercuriale. To magnify the Risorgimento epic, on the proposal of Tito Pasqui from Forlì, the course was then dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Corso Armando Diaz
This course leads from Piazza Saffi to the Piazzale di Porta Ravaldino (gate that no longer exists), and to the Viale dell'Appennino which, towards the south, connects the city to Predappio and Castrocaro Terme, then heading to Florence. It is the backbone of the "Ravaldino" district, a name of uncertain origin, but known since the Middle Ages. There is also a locality called "Ravaldino in Monte" in the foothills of Forlì.

Near the center stands the Orsi Mangelli palace
Also at the beginning of the Corso is the Municipal Theater named after the Forlì playwright Diego Fabbri.
Further on is the Church of Sant'Antonio Vecchio (10th century), today the Memorial of the Fallen
Also interesting is the Church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Ravaldino, from the early 18th century, which houses, among other beautiful paintings and wooden statues, a Visitation by Marco Palmezzano; there is also an organ by Alessio Verati.
The final stretch flanks the mighty Rocca di Ravaldino, a central citadel in the defensive system of the medieval walls already at the time of the Ordelaffi and the center of government, in particular under Caterina Sforza: the Rocca was the main theater of battle with the French and papal troops of Cesare Borgia. In The Art of War, Machiavelli describes the Rocca thus: "It was all that fortress full of places to withdraw from one into the other, because there was first the citadel, from that to the fortress was a ditch, so that it passed through a drawbridge; the fortress was divided into three parts, and each part was divided by ditches and water from the other, and by bridges one passed from one place to another".
Senator Roberto Ruffilli lived in this street where he was killed in his house by the red brigades of the fighting communist party.

Victory square
Continuing along Corso della Repubblica from Piazza Aurelio Saffi, you arrive at Piazzale della Vittoria, which acts both as a large roundabout and as a junction between Corso della Repubblica, Viale Roma, Via Corridoni, Viale Matteotti and Viale della Libertà. In the center emerges on a high column the war memorial, built in 1932. The building of the former aeronautical college, in rationalist style, now used as schools, overlooks the square. On both sides of the entrance to Corso della Repubblica there are the twin buildings, built in 1933. The Faculty of Economics of the University of Bologna and the national institute for insurance against accidents at work also overlook it. Furthermore, from the square, you can access the monumental entrance to the park of the Resistance.

Avenue of Liberty
Continuing from piazzale della Vittoria towards the railway station, cross viale della Libertà. With a width of forty meters and orientation perpendicular to the Via Emilia, it presents a large number of buildings that constitute important examples of the various architectural styles of the Ventennio.

Buildings of architectural interest located on the avenue:
Inexpensive houses for post and telegraphs
Cheap houses of railway workers
Villa Boni
Edmondo De Amicis primary school
Headquarters of the Industrial Technical Institute
Former Casa del Balilla
Palace of the former aeronautical college

 

Natural areas

Before the walls were demolished, a substantial area close to the walls formed a ring, inside the walls themselves, almost complete at 360°, of public green intended for cultivation. These gardens, present in the Middle Ages, had to provide the necessary area to be cultivated and therefore produce the necessary sustenance in the event of a possible siege of the city. This green area for the city has always been maintained until the beginning of the twentieth century when, with the decision to expand the city beyond the walls, they began to be built. Today only a few sections of these gardens remain.

The municipal and city territory is decidedly rich in small green areas and four large public parks:
Via Dragoni park
Resistance Park
Franco August Urban Park
Paul Harris Park

In fact, the city is equipped with many green areas and parks that reach a total area of 300 hectares.

Many old mulberry trees are still present in the municipal area, the last witnesses of a period in which this type of tree was widespread. Its leaves were collected and used to feed the silkworms, whose breeding was flourishing and fed the solid silk industry.

Some city streets and other extra-urban streets are then characterized on the sides by rows of trees, such as those of the via lughese (the road that leads to Lugo) and the via cervese (the road that leads to Cervia), although for years this tree and crops questioned for reasons of road safety.

On the basis of regional law 2 / 1977, some valuable monumental trees were also identified, including a downy oak over two hundred years old, 3 black poplars over 130 years old and an oriental plane tree over 170 years old. The latter is actually the best known, admired and known tree and is remembered as the tree of Giosuè Carducci. Of the noteworthy trees, 2 fruit trees can also be mentioned: a centuries-old jujube and a sixty-year-old apricot tree.

There are also 3 forest wrecks of notable naturalistic importance present in the municipal area. The most important is the Selva di Ladino, owned by the Municipality, and considered the survivor of the Selva Litana. The integrity of this wood is however undermined by the provincial road (via del partigiano) which cuts it in two. average height of over 15 meters. The Selva di Ladino merges with the spontaneous vegetation of the nearby Montone river, constituting a botanical naturalistic site of considerable importance and recognized as a Site of Community Importance (SIC).

There is another small wood located in the hamlet of Ravaldino in Monte, younger than that of Ladino.

A 3rd wooded site is an oak grove located in Farazzano, on the border with the Meldola area, which has Turkey oaks around 80 years old.

A park of notable naturalistic interest is the protective oasis of Magliano, established in 1984 by the provincial administration for the protection of aquatic birds. This area extends for 680 hectares and is included between the municipalities of Forlì, Forlimpopoli and Bertinoro.

A little-known green space is the one located on the banks of the Ronco river and which is called Ronco lido. At the beginning of the 19th century, the people of Forlì, who didn't have a sea nearby, thought of using the banks of the river as a substitute for the sea. A bathing area consisting of a small beach, a road and small bathing establishments were thus built on the bank of the river.

 

History

Origins and ancient times
The locality where Forlì stands was inhabited since the Paleolithic, as evidenced by the findings of Monte Poggiolo, with numerous finds dated to about 800,000 years ago. In 2010, during the construction of the new city prison, a large prehistoric necropolis dating back to 4 000 years ago was found, which shows that the area was already permanently inhabited at that time.

The city actually arose on an ancient commercial settlement, located on the border line that separated the territory controlled by the Lingoni from that of the Senones and called by the Etruscans Ficline (Figline), that is the land of potters (but also of brick production), for the ceramics that were produced there and that will be famous also in the XIV-XVI centuries. Indeed, in the fifteenth century, the production of Forlì "beat that of nearby Faenza for fame and prestige, which became famous only from the last century onwards".

The current name is of Roman origin, Forum Livii: the castrum was probably founded in 188 BC, according to tradition, by Gaius Livio Salinatore, son of the consul Marco Livio Salinatore who, in 207 BC, defeated the Carthaginian army led by Hasdrubal in the battle of the Metauro. The city, therefore, celebrated 22 centuries of history in 2012. Few remains of the Roman city remain, especially underground (bridges, paved streets, foundations). The forum must have been at the height of the current Piazza Melozzo, while it is probable the existence of a castrum in the area of ​​the Romiti, on the way to Faenza. The castrum called Livia and the forum called Livii re-founded the Etruscan Ficline, giving rise to Forlì. An important pagus, dating back to the years in which Constantius II was Emperor, was found near the Pieveacquedotto, where Trajan's aqueduct passed.

An excavation conducted in 2003-2004, in via Curte, has brought to light important remains from the Roman era: it is a housing sequence that goes from the Republican age to the late ancient age. This allowed us to understand what life in the ancient Forum Livii could be like.

Middle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, after the brief dominion of Odoacer, Forlì was part of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, then of the empire of Byzantium. It remained Byzantine at the time of the Lombard invasion, in the sixth century, then it was part of the donations of Pipino the Short to the Church.

Born, obviously for defense reasons, on an island at the confluence of two rivers, Forlì was however long troubled by floods, so, around 1050, the system of the waterways was rearranged with various engineering works that moved away from the built-up area the risk of new flooding.

The city was the protagonist of the events in the Romagna area during the Middle Ages: the complex coat of arms alludes to different moments in its history: the city was given the vermilion shield from the Romans, on which a white cross; a second shield, white, crossed by the word LIBERTAS, testifies to the periods in which the city became a republic (the first time in 889, the last in 1405): the colors of the city, therefore, are white and red ; the Swabian eagle in the field of gold was instead granted by Frederick II, for the help given him in the capture of Faenza (1241), since Forlì sided with the Ghibellines. These merits allowed the Forlì to then intercede in favor of the Faenza and to convince Federico to spare the city of Faenza, which he intended to destroy instead.

The Emperor also gave the city of Forlì, on the occasion, a wide municipal autonomy, including the right to mint coins.

The transition from the free commune to the lordship was rather troubled: among others, the attempts of Simone Mastaguerra, Maghinardo Pagani and Uguccione della Faggiola emerged, but the success in the city domain smiled on the Ordelaffi family dynasty, which managed, albeit with some interruption, the city from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth.

In 1353, Pope Innocent VI from the Avignonese captivity commissioned his Vicar, Cardinal Egidio Albornoz, to reclaim the Romagne which were put to fire and sword. In 1355, in order to definitively defeat the Ghibelline resistance led by the Ordelaffi, Innocent VI launched the Crusade against the Forlivesi led by Louis I of Hungary. The crusade ended in 1359 with an agreement between the Ordelaffi and the pope, which placed Romagna under the power of the Papal State.

From a technical point of view, it can be pointed out that Forlì, in the fourteenth century, was one of the first cities to equip itself with a mechanical clock, located in the civic tower.

 

Medieval Forlì also saw the presence of a thriving community of Jews: there is news of the existence of a Jewish school in the city since the thirteenth century, while the oldest Italian example of a Jewish heraldic image (1383) comes from Forlì; furthermore, a civic statute of Forlì of 1359 testifies to the stability of the presence of the Jews and their pews. For example, it is known that, in 1373, Bonaventure Council and partner lent 8,000 ducats to Amedeo VI of Savoy, having the crown and other values ​​as a guarantee. It should also be noted that, in the Middle Ages, the Jews in Forlì could own land and buildings. With the sixteenth century, however, the possibility was restricted to buildings only, also due to the passage of the city to the direct dominion of the Church State.

Two illustrated Hebrew prayer books, respectively from Bertinoro and Forlì, date back to the years 1390 and 1393 and are currently preserved in Great Britain.

It should also be remembered that Rabbi Hillel da Verona worked and died in Forlì, who with his writings could also influence Dante's imagination, a guest in the city shortly after his death.

Forlì was therefore an important center of Jewish business and cultural life.

Of note, in this regard, is the important congress of the delegates of the Jewish communities of Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, the cities of Romagna and Tuscany, as well as Rome, which was convened in Forlì on 18 May 1418: there they made decisions on the behavior (ethical and social) that the Jews should have and a delegation was sent to Pope Martin V for the confirmation of the old privileges and the granting of new ones.

In the Middle Ages what would become an important tradition in the field of medicine also began. In fact, Forlì, like all the early medieval Romagna, keeps alive the knowledge of classical culture, especially in the medical field, as a Byzantine land. Thus the Carolingians themselves "were able to benefit from the medical knowledge present in the Ravenna exarchate". In the following centuries, then, we will find doctors of great importance forlì, such as Iacopo della Torre, better known as Iacopo da Forlì.

On 11 April 1425 Alberico (or Alberigo) from Barbiano opened the first secular school in Forlì: the first student was Cristiano, the son of the painter and historian Giovanni di Mastro Pedrino.

Modern age
The fifteenth century closed, for Forlì, with an important cultural innovation: in 1495, in fact, the printing house of Paolo Guarini and Giovanni Giacomo Benedetti opened in the city.

During the Renaissance Forlì boasted many connections with Italian national history: his lady was Caterina Sforza, who, widow of Girolamo Riario (nephew of Pope Sixtus IV), married, in 1497, Giovanni de 'Medici (called "il Popolano"), marriage from which Ludovico (later Giovanni), known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, was born the following year, the famous captain of fortune, father of that Cosimo I de 'Medici who will be the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. Caterina, despite a heroic resistance in the fortress of Ravaldino, in Forlì, was defeated by Cesare Borgia in the expansion plan of the papal possessions in Romagna.

After an ephemeral attempt to return the Ordelaffi, Pope Julius II, passing through Forlì in 1506, managed to impose, at least temporarily, peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

Back under papal dominion, Forlì constituted the center of papal Romagna. The papal government guaranteed the city and its inhabitants a period of peaceful civil life, especially after the establishment of the Ninety Pacifici judiciary, commissioned, in 1540, by Giovanni Guidiccioni. In this regard, Adamo Pasini writes: "Whatever the judgment one wants to give of the government that came to consolidate in that century, the fact is that the sixteenth century marks the rise of our aristocracy, of our construction, of our literature. the three sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have died for history, to dedicate volumes to the thirteenth - fourteenth - fifteenth centuries, means giving too much importance to the civil war and little or no importance to economics, study, work ".

As proof of what Pasini says, in 1522 a special college was born in Forlì that graduated to the office of notary.

We should remember the bishops Pier Giovanni Aleotti (1551-1563) and Antonio Giannotti (1563-1578), whose incisive action led the city to be "cited as an example of orthodoxy and religious zeal" and influenced the Forlì art school itself, placing it in substantial advance even on the evolution of the Roman school.

 

In 1630, the city escaped the plague, which also devastated the rest of Italy and Romagna. The population attributed the merit to a miraculous intervention of the Madonna del Fuoco, in whose honor a celebratory column was erected in the Campo dell'Abate (today Piazza Saffi).

From a general point of view, despite various vicissitudes, such as the looting carried out by the Austrians in 1708, the political situation remained substantially unchanged until the unification of Italy, except for a short period of political independence from the Papal State around 1797, when Forlì became the capital of the Rubicon department in the new administrative division dictated by Napoleon's troops to the follower of the Kingdom of Italy. Among the laws imposed by the new Napoleonic civil code there was the possibility of divorce and a citizen of Forlì requested it (first cause of divorce more than 150 years from the current law).

Furthermore, the Napoleonic officials took care of investigating the habits and customs of the subjugated populations, producing a considerable amount of data on the popular traditions of this part of Romagna. A Forlì managed to recover part of those investigations (actually mostly coming from Sarsina, but also in use in Forlì) and published a text that is one of the first works on Romagna traditions, then followed by the work of Pergoli verso the end of the nineteenth century, which also took care of the collection of songs in Forlì and in San Martino in strada (fraction of Forlì).

In the first half of the 19th century, the papal legation of Forlì, entrusted to a Legate Cardinal, also included the cities of Cesena and Rimini.

In January 1832 the city was sacked and 21 of its citizens killed during the massacres of Cesena and Forlì by the papal troops during the final repression of the Romagna uprisings.

It should be remembered, during the Roman Republic of 1849, the initiative of the patriotic banquets, which were held, in support of it, in Forlì, and it was the only case in all of Italy: it was patriotic public banquets, which saw a massive participation of the paying public.

From a cultural point of view, the Renaissance saw the birth and flourishing, with Melozzo and Marco Palmezzano, of the Forlì school of art, then carried on by authors such as Francesco Menzocchi and Livio Agresti in the sixteenth century, and by their followers of the following centuries. There are also important productions of majolica and ceramics: to remember at least the name of Leucadio Solombrini, who King Francis I of France wanted to invite to open a shop at his court in Amboise.

The illustrious medical tradition of Forlì also continues, with characters such as Girolamo Mercuriali and Giovanni Battista Morgagni.

Units of measure preceding the decimal system.

Before the introduction of the metric system (1861), other units of measurement were being adopted. In Forlì, the main ones were:

for the length: the pole (pëdga), divided into 10 feet, equivalent to 4.881598 m; the canvas arm (braz), 0.74 m; the cloth arm, 0.62 m; the foot (pè), divided into 10 ounces, approximately equivalent to 0.49 m;
for the surface: the turning (tarnadura), divided into 100 square poles, equivalent to 2383 m²; the square pole, divided into 100 square feet, equivalent to 23.83 m²;
for volume: cubic foot, divided into 1 000 cubic ounces, equivalent to 0.116 cubic meters;
for the capacity of containers for grains and dry matter: the bag (sac da dó stëra), divided into two bushels, equivalent to 144.32 l; the bushel (stër), divided into two 2 mezzini, equivalent to 72.16 l; the mezzino, divided into two quarters, or quatrains, equivalent to 36.08 l; the fourth, or quartino, (cvartaröla), divided into 4 provende, equivalent to 18.04 l; the provenda, equivalent to 4.51 l;
for weight: the pound (livra), divided into 12 ounces, equivalent to 0.329 kg; the ounce (ônza), divided into 8 octaves, equivalent to 0.024 kg.

Contemporary age
In the second half of the nineteenth century Forlì became the "zitadòn" (town) of Romagna: a large center compared to the other neighboring urban realities, whose prosperity derives from agriculture - the typical sharecropping contract is widespread - and from the salt trade through the direct route to Cervia and its salt pans, as well as from its location on the strategic Via Emilia, halfway between Bologna and Rimini. The city, however, also experienced the first phenomena of industrialization: the billiards factory; the brewery of Gaetano Pasqui; the furnaces of the first half of the 19th century; Becchi, for the construction of terracotta stoves which later became famous; the Bonavita Anonymous Company for the production of felt; the important Officine Forlanini. From a cultural point of view, Forlì is an active city, with the presence of some newspapers.

 

There was no shortage of prominent personalities during the Risorgimento: Aurelio Saffi, a Mazzinian republican, and Piero Maroncelli, a friend of Silvio Pellico and imprisoned like him for his ideal of a united Italy free from foreign or religious domination.

As proof of the modernization underway, on May 21, 1915 (just before Italy entered the First World War), in the place where the university now stands, the new city hospital, named after Giovanni Battista Morgagni, officially came into operation.

The city mourns its martyrs of the Great War and in the first post-war period it shows a remarkable intellectual vivacity, for example with the inauguration of the Forlivese Artistic Cenacle (1920). But it is with the rise of Fascism and the Second World War that Forlì returns to make a lot of talk about itself. At 15 km from the city, in Predappio, Benito Mussolini was born: when he first became prime minister, then duce, Forlì inevitably enjoyed a certain reputation for returning, beginning to be presented in official propaganda as "the city of the Duce". This had negative consequences in the postwar years, when it was possible to witness, by way of retaliation, what a historian has defined an implicit conventio ad tacendum: whenever it was not really inevitable to mention it, Forlì did not even have to be mentioned. To express the particular state of mind present in Forlì in the decades following the war, Giorgio Bocca talks about the Duce complex.

During the regime, however, Forlì developed beyond its traditional territorial and economic context: the architects of the regime indulged in designing new buildings corresponding to the taste of the moment, such as the new railway station, the new Palazzo delle Poste and that of the State Offices (whose architecture resembles a "B", like Benito) in the central piazza Saffi, viale Benito Mussolini (now Viale della Libertà), along which the State Industrial Technical Institute was built, with the plant in the shape of an enormous "M "(like Mussolini). All this building fervor qualifies Forlì, according to Ulisse Tramonti (of the University of Florence), as a "national showcase of rationalist architecture".

Local industries then grew (Forlanini, Mangelli); in 1936 the "Luigi Ridolfi" airport was inaugurated, at the time the largest military airport in Italy, which, after the war, was for a long time a pole of commercial traffic with the countries of communist Europe.

The city paid its bill of human lives to the war, also bearing the loss of priceless artistic treasures, such as the church of San Biagio or the municipal theater; the civic tower was also bombed, only to be rebuilt later. The bell tower of the Basilica of San Mercuriale was instead spared by the retreating Germans, the voices of the people indicate through the intercession and plea of ​​the parish priest Don Giuseppe Prati, known amiably as Don Pippo. Certain is the work of the then bishop of the city, Monsignor Giuseppe Rolla, who certainly paid a very substantial price in terms of provisions and livestock for the retreating German army. Recently some "nostalgic" voices would like to point out in the direct intervention of Benito Mussolini the cause of the rescue of the bell tower. This possibility is actually remote. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mussolini himself, a fervent anticlerical, set the door of the same church on fire, also suffering a condemnation reported in the chronicles of the time.

Among the tragic moments of the war, the massacre of Forlì should also be mentioned, in which 42 people were killed in September 1944 at the city airport. Other massacres were committed in the Forlì area: the massacre of San Tomè and massacre of Branzolino.

The British and Indian allied troops entered the city, coming from Cesena, with the support of the partisan brigades. Precisely as a symbolic city, the British wanted to reserve for themselves the honor of entering Forlì, preceding both the partisans themselves and the Poles of Władysław Anders, who had already taken Predappio. The well-kept Indian Cemetery is still present and can be visited almost in front of the Monumental Cemetery, in memory of those who lost their lives on this occasion.

 

One month after its liberation, on 10 December 1944, Forlì was shocked by a bombing of the German air force, which experienced for the first time the effect on an inhabited center of a new type of bomb, the Grossladungsbombe SB 1000, with development horizontal explosive instead of "funnel" (and with the relative lack of the crater). In addition to numerous deaths, this bombing was responsible for the loss of the Church of San Biagio.

The first mayor of the liberated Forlì was Franco Agosto, to whom the Urban Park is dedicated today, a green lung on the bend that the Montone river forms near Porta Ravaldino.

After the war the city stabilized in its traditional activities linked to the agricultural and artisan sector, developing a dynamic reality of small artisan businesses or cooperatives.

Forlì was also the scene of a murder by the Red Brigades. On April 16, 1988 (ten years after the assassination of Aldo Moro, and just a few days after the birth of the new government headed by De Mita, which Ruffilli had helped to create), they assassinated Senator Roberto Ruffilli in his house in Corso Diaz, in the Ravaldino district.

On April 5, 2009, around 10.20 pm, an earthquake of magnitude 4.7 was felt between the cities of Forlì and Faenza, which anticipated the terrible earthquake of April 6, 2009 in L'Aquila.

 

Territory

Forlì is located in the Po valley, more precisely in Romagna, 5 km away from the first hills of the Tuscan-Romagna Preappennino and about 26 km from the Adriatic coast. The outskirts are bathed by the Montone river which, near the Vecchiazzano district, receives the waters of the Rabbi river, and then laps the urban walls at Porta Schiavonia, and by the Ronco river which crosses the homonymous suburb of the city.

 

Geology

In the United Rivers basin the rocks tend to become more and more recent as they proceed from upstream to downstream. The oldest ones of local origin are, in fact, represented by the boulder, a powerful succession of sandstone banks with marly intercalations, formed between 37 and 18 million years ago, outcropping in the Apennine ridge. In the mountains and hills, the marly-sandstone formation dominates, which settled between 15 and 7 million years ago. During the accumulation of this 5300 m thick formation, the depth of the seabed was kept practically constant by progressive subsidence.

Towards the end of the Middle Miocene, subsidence ceased, the arm of the sea in question tends to fill up, the wrinkling of sedimented rocks begins below the sea depths and the first allochthonous blankets arrive in the Romagna areas. They take the name of Ligurian, because their main nucleus was formed in the Ligurian domain during the Cretaceous. These rocks, due to successive movements, are reduced to a chaotic state and have also dragged with them more recent formations deposited on them during the various stasis of the movement. In the Municipality of Forlì, only a modest allochthonous strip currently crops out on the right bank of the Ronco river.

In the upper Miocene, about 5 million years ago, the orogeny and the concomitant lowering of the sea level, consequent to the desiccation of the Mediterranean following the closure of the Strait of Gibraltar, led to a vast emergence of land. The mountainous and hilly areas were crossed by watercourses, which gave rise to the delta deposits that are located upstream of the Municipality of Forlì on the border with that of Predappio. Lakes and lagoons occupied the most depressed parts of the territory and, especially the latter, were subjected to strong and prolonged evaporation, which gave rise to the chalky-sulphurous formation rocks, still typical of hilly areas today. The emerged lands were green with a rich flora, and were populated by horses, carnivores, insectivores, monkeys, birds and reptiles, animals of which fossil remains have been found.

At the beginning of the Pliocene, the communications between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, a sea rich in plant life, were definitively re-established, the sea returned to advance up to the current low hill areas and abandoned clayey and sandy sediments depending on the place and depth. . In this period the spungone, a typical local stone, was also deposited, consisting of a limestone of the lower middle Pliocene, produced by an underwater reef rich in life.

During the upper Pliocene and much of the lower Pleistocene, with which the Quaternary era begins about 1.8 million years ago, the sedimentation of marine clays continues in the low hills whose beginning of the new era is indicated by the appearance of fossils, testifying to the cooling of the Mediterranean. Subsequently, the depth of the sea gradually decreased until it gave rise to the yellow sand beach in the pre-hill area, between 1.45 and 1.1 million years ago, interrupted here and there by the deltas of the Apennine rivers. On the lands that emerged then luxuriant arboreal vegetation grew and the sea was rich in molluscs and other organisms. At the end of the lower Pleistocene, Homo erectus lived along this coast, which left numerous finds in the area of ​​Monte Poggiolo.

At the end of the Middle Pleistocene, on an erosion surface connecting the plain to the ancient hilly surface, a level of Aeolian silts, defined loess, was formed, attributable to the Rissian glaciation, which ended about 150,000 years ago. The environment was then dry and rather cold, and the ground covered with herbaceous plants and rare trees, large herbivores (elephants, rhinos, bison) which were prey to small groups of nomadic hunters.

 

During the last part of the Quaternary era, erosive phenomena completed the current modeling of the hilly and mountain relief, in which pyramidal shapes dominate in the outcrops of the marly-arenaceous formation and gentle undulations of the clayey hill, often interrupted by steep fans of valleys of the badlands. At the same time, powerful alluvial sheets were formed in the plain following the deposit of erosive sediments from the reliefs and transported by rivers to the depressed parts of the territory. Below Forlì, their thickness is more than 200 m. Even in the hilly mountain slopes the watercourses have left traces of their sedimentation activity.

 

Climate

Forlì has a warm temperate climate, permanently humid, with very hot summers (Köppen-Geiger Cfa classification).

The climate is influenced by being close to the coast of the Adriatic Sea, at the southern edge of the Po Valley and close to the Apennine ridge, which, together with the mountain spurs between the valleys, oriented from south-west to north-east, greatly influences the wind pattern on the ground.

The coldest month, January, has an average temperature of 3.1 ° C, while the hottest month, July, has an average temperature of 24.7 ° C. The highest temperature recorded in Forlì was 43.0 ° C in August 2017 while the lowest is −19.0 ° C recorded in January 1985. The annual excursion, given by the difference between the average temperature of the hottest month is that of the coldest month, it oscillates between 18 and 23 ° C.

The average annual rainfall of Forlì is approximately 745 mm of rain, and the number of rainy days is on average 75. The rains are distributed fairly regularly throughout the year, with maximum values ​​in November (79 mm) and lows in January (38 mm), February and July (40 mm).

The phenomenon of fog occurs regularly every year, especially in the winter months, or at the end of autumn, manifesting itself at different levels of intensity and frequency with prevailing accentuation of the lowland areas in the morphological depressions and thinning out further south starting from the Apennine offshoots.

In Forlì the north-west, east and south-west winds predominate. In spring, summer and autumn winds from the east prevail, in winter those from the north-west.