Reggio Emilia is an Italian town of 172 124 inhabitants, the
capital of the province of the same name in Emilia-Romagna. Built at
the behest of the consul Marco Emilio Lepido along the Via Emilia,
the ancient Roman road that connected Piacenza to Rimini, Reggio
Emilia can boast the nickname of Città del Tricolore, as the Italian
flag, inspired by the banners of the Cispadana Republic, was born
and was exhibited for the first time in this city on January 7,
1797. The banner was displayed in the eighteenth-century Sala del
Tricolore of the town hall, in the same hall that today houses the
sessions of the municipal council.
Reggio, together with
nearby Parma and Modena, is the place of origin of the famous
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and is the cradle of the Reggio Emilia
Approach pedagogical teaching method that has made Reggio's
preschools famous all over the world. After the end of the Second
World War, Reggio was awarded the gold medal for military valor of
the Resistance due to the important role played by the city and its
inhabitants in the war of Italian liberation.
In prehistoric times the area was inhabited by
Celtic-Ligurian ethnic populations. Starting from the 6th century BC
Numerous Etruscan colonies are established in what is today the
Province of Reggio Emilia, attested with certainty by various
archaeological finds. With the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul and
the submission of the militarily dominant Celtic tribe, the Galli
Boi, the command passed definitively to the Romans, who set up a
military garrison there to defend the Via Emilia. The Roman province
of Gallia Cisalpina becomes one of the most prosperous areas of the
empire, and Reggio evolves to the rank of city. The city was a Roman
municipality and was called Regium Lepidi, deriving its name from
Marco Emilio Lepido, founder of the city and of the street that
gives its name to the current region. With the fall of the Western
Roman Empire the city was almost depopulated. After the Lombard
conquest (6th century) the city was the capital of the Duchy of
Reggio, then in the early Middle Ages it became a bishopric it
became a free municipality, but remained subject to fierce internal
struggles, which led to its transformation into seigniory under the
Este and later to Ducato; in this period the city took the name of
"Reggio di Lombardia", a toponym that has its origins in the early
Middle Ages and is widely documented. During the period of the
Napoleonic invasions in Reggio Emilia on December 27, 1796, an
assembly of 110 delegates chaired by Carlo Facci met to decree the
constitution of the Cispadana Republic, including the territories of
Bologna, Ferrara, Modena and Reggio Emilia and in the homonymous
Hall Shortly thereafter, on 7 January 1797, the Italian Tricolor was
born.
The proposal for the adoption of a green, white and red
flag was proposed by Giuseppe Compagnoni, who is therefore
remembered as the "Father of the Tricolor". Subsequently, with the
annexation of Lombardy (and marginally of Veneto and Tuscany), it
took the name of the Cisalpine Republic. After the Restoration of
the Duchy in 1815, Reggio belonged to the Austria-Este until 1860,
when it was united to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which the following
year became the Kingdom of Italy. The toponym Reggio di Lombardia
was the official one throughout the existence of the Duchy of Modena
and Reggio, until the annexation of the Este territories to the
Kingdom of Sardinia when the current name was introduced.
Reggio Emilia is among the cities decorated with military
valor for the War of Liberation, awarded the gold medal for military
valor on 1 April 1950, for the sacrifices of its populations and for
its activity in the partisan struggle during the Second World War:
Gold medal for military valor
During the enemy occupation he
opposed the invading German with the fierce resistance of his sons,
who flocked in large numbers to the partisan formations engaged in
hard and bloody struggle. Five hundred fallen in combat, entire
municipalities destroyed, populations tortured and subjected to the
most ruthless terror, mass deportations, inhuman massacres and cruel
persecutions, constitute the tragic, but luminous, outcome of a
persevering and courageous activity which began in September 1943
and ended with the defeat of the occupying forces. Mindful of
secular noble traditions, reaffirmed in the epic of the
Risorgimento, the City of Reggio Emilia has been able to conclude a
renewed cycle of struggles for freedom and independence and offer
the homeland a generous tribute of sacrifice and blood. "
-
September 1943, April 1945
The current historical center
of the city is in the shape of an elongated hexagon, crossed by the
Via Emilia and has a predominantly sixteenth-eighteenth-century
imprint. The sides of the hexagon represent the sediment of the
perimeter of the ancient fortification walls, demolished in the
early nineteenth century and converted into urban avenues to allow
city expansion. The main monuments of the city are the Municipal
Theater, of neoclassical forms, dedicated to the memory of the
illustrious Reggio actor Romolo Valli, the Renaissance and Baroque
basilicas of San Prospero and the sanctuary of the Beata Vergine
della Ghiara, the Cathedral and many buildings from the medieval
period. and Renaissance scattered throughout the historic center.
The urban configuration of the squares in the heart of the city
is particularly interesting. The connection between the main square,
on which the Duomo stands and the town hall, called piazza
Prampolini, (Piàsa Granda: piazza Grande in Reggio) with piazza San
Prospero (Piàsa Céca: piazza Piccola in Reggiano) where the market
takes place is arcaded street named via del Broletto. Piazza
Prampolini is also connected with Piazza Casotti, which was once the
square of the so-called flea market (piàsa di Zavaj: piazza dei
Rigattieri in dialect) through another arcaded street. Also of
extreme importance is Piazza Fontanesi located in a less central
position and in the center of which there are several lime trees and
which is surrounded by arcades.
Also relevant are: the Via
Emilia, located on the original Roman city decuman, which in the
historic city center is completely flanked by palaces of
architectural value and is divided into two branches by the Piazza
del Monte; Corso Garibaldi, on the route of the ancient riverbed of
the Crostolo stream (deviated in ancient times outside the city
walls), near which the Basilica of the Madonna della Ghiara, the
Palazzo Ducale (currently the seat of the Province and the
Prefecture) and the Oratory of Christ. Finally, the public gardens
are also important, a nineteenth-century park with statues,
fountains planted on the area of the ancient military citadel, and
the adjacent squares of the theaters.
It is not difficult to
recognize the traces of Roman town planning (the Civic Museums
preserve interesting mosaic finds) and of the transformations that
took place in the Middle Ages. In particular, among the small
streets of the historic center, via San Carlo, via Toschi and via
Guido da Castello stand out.
Along the Via Emilia stands the
monumental complex of Mauriziano, which hosted the poet Ludovico
Ariosto. The Mauritian includes a fifteenth-century villa and a
park, which is accessed by a monumental arch.
In the
eighteenth-century hall of the Municipality of Reggio, called Sala
del Tricolore, the first tricolor of the Cispadana Republic (which
later became the Cisalpine Republic) was adopted from which the
current flag of the Italian Republic derives.
Reggio Emilia
is also characterized by modern architecture, the futuristic
Mediopadana High Speed Station and the Bridges, both monumental
creations of the famous Spanish engineer and architect Santiago
Calatrava, arise in the immediate outskirts of the city. As far as
industrial archeology is concerned, interesting examples of urban
redevelopment are provided by the Technopole obtained from a portion
of the disused factories of the Officine Reggiane and by the
contiguous space that houses the Loris Malaguzzi International
Center for Infancy obtained from the disused area of the former
Locatelli . The space of the disused Officine Reggiane is one of the
most degraded areas of the city.
Reggio Emilia is located in the Po Valley, in the
heart of the historical region of Emilia and the province of the
same name, and is crossed by the Crostolo stream. The municipal
territory, totally flat, is also bathed by numerous streams and
minor streams where, over the centuries, the first residential
nuclei corresponding to today's hamlets and localities have
developed. The first offshoots of the Reggiano Apennines extend
about 10 kilometers south of the municipal area, in the neighboring
municipalities of Quattro Castella, Albinea, Scandiano and
Casalgrande.
It borders to the north with the municipalities
of Campegine, Cadelbosco di Sopra and Bagnolo in Piano, to the east
with Correggio, San Martino in Rio and Rubiera, to the south with
Casalgrande, Scandiano, Albinea, Quattro Castella, to the west with
Bibbiano, Cavriago, Montecchio Emilia and Sant'Ilario d'Enza. The
center of Reggio Emilia is located 24 km north-west of Modena and
27.5 km south-east of Parma.
The climate can be
defined as temperate continental, with hot and rather muggy summers
(with maximum temperatures that sometimes even exceed 35 ° C) and
severe winters with frequent frosts (with minimum temperatures that
can drop below -10 ° C during the most intense cold waves).
The rains are distributed throughout the year, but with greater
frequency and intensity on average in autumn and spring, resulting
in October, November and April being the wettest months while July
and January are the driest.
The snow falls almost every year
in the city in winter, albeit with rarely large accumulations and
with great variability between one season and another (overall the
city has an average of about 30 cm of snow accumulation per year,
although it can sometimes occur snowfall of 40 cm and more). During
the autumn and winter season, particularly in the countryside areas
of the municipal area, the phenomenon of fog is quite common,
although less frequent today than in the past.
Other
meteorological phenomena which we occasionally witness are frostbite
and rime (in winter) and hail (in summer, or sometimes in spring).
The wind is generally low and there are days of calm wind,
especially in the anticyclonic phases in winter, while spring is the
relatively more windy season. The most intense winds are usually
those that blow from the north-east (Bora) or from the south-west
(Libeccio), with the latter in particular that sometimes favors
during the descent from the northern Apennines and therefore becomes
particularly hot and dry. In particular and rare conditions, the
Alpine Föhn, which blows from the north-west here, can also occur up
to Reggio Emilia.