VILLA GARANI
Originally known as Orsi, Villa Garani was once surrounded by a moat and had a beautiful tower, demolished in the late 19th century. Encircled by a large park, it was the most important villa in San Pietro in Casale and was owned by the town’s pharmacists.

VILLA BERSELLI
Formerly owned by Anacleto Bonora, Villa Berselli had a manor house framed by a spacious park featuring a circular fountain and flanked by two barnhouses (barchesse). The adjacent garden, which included a grove, a stream, statues, and fruit trees, was a popular meeting place for locals, who could access it for a fee paid to Frabboni’s mother.
Many residents fondly recall cooling off under its trees in summer. Sadly, the grove was destroyed by the Germans in the winter of 1944 for firewood. Remarkably, remnants of underground hypogea in the garden still exist within the “Vivi” dance venue, once aptly named “Le grotte” (“The Caves”).
After WWII, the Segni Law mandated the expropriation of large estates, redistributing the land to agricultural workers, transforming them into small entrepreneurs. In 1896, the Anacleto Bonora Hospital was built on land west of the villa. Later, the manor house hosted a community center for the Regional Employee Circle (CRAL) and, since 2004, has been home to the Mario Luzi Public Library.

On the other side of Via Giacomo Matteotti the opposite side of the street featured Villa Luigi Bonora, a horse breeding stable, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul with its large forecourt, the Municipality in Piazza Luigi Calori (now Piazza Martiri della Liberazione), and landmarks such as the birthplace of Luigi Calori, elementary schools, and a memorial garden dedicated to WWI casualties in what is now Piazza Luigi Calori.

VILLA LUIGI BONORA

The Villa Bonora casino was built in 1877, designed by the engineer Count Annibale Bentivoglio. The client was Luigi Bonora, a cousin of Anacleto and a wealthy businessman who had rented the vast estate from the Duchy of Galliera. Approximately in 1893, a large building was built near the casino for use as a stable with a shed, on the corner of the road leading to the station, with an oblique entrance facing the via provinciale Benelli. The stables housed thoroughbred stallion horses, purchased abroad and used for riding. In the shed, foodstuffs produced in the Duchy of Galliera were stored, which were then transported by rail and sold. Luigi Bonora was podestà of the village during Fascism, then left the land and his villa was plundered and abandoned. Don Alfonso Baroni, parish priest of San Pietro since 1953, proposed the purchase of the villa with its large park to turn it into a parish kindergarten. The kindergarten, which was moved from its old location in what is now Via Benelli, was inaugurated in September 1954 and named after Marino Corati.

TOWN HALL SQUARE

The original Town Hall of San Pietro in Casale was located in Piazza Luigi Calori (now Piazza Martiri della Liberazione), in a two-story neoclassical building adorned with a portico, an iron balcony, and a clock tower. After the town hall moved to Villa Padoa in 1896, the historic pharmacy and carabinieri remained in this building.

On either side of the building were two others equally arcades. The one on the left housed several historic shops: a hardware shop, a tobacco shop with a salsamenteria, a barber shop, a hat shop and the Galuppi craft shop. The owner of this building was Cavalier Paolo Berselli.
Berselli came to San Pietro every Tuesday for the market; someone still remembers that a squad of ‘sanpierini’ always waited for him at the beginning of the village. The cavaliere would arrive and ask in dialect, ‘in quant siv?’, and together they would go for a drink in one of the town’s many taverns, where the cavaliere would buy for everyone.

PIAZZA DEL MERCATO

Known for its weekly cattle fairs, Piazza del Mercato brought together over 500 livestock every Tuesday.
In a house overlooking the market square, Luigi Calori, a distinguished physician and anatomist, was born in 1807 and reached the top of the administration of the University of Bologna.
An epigraph on the façade of his birth house commemorates him: LUIGI CALORI SUPREME AMONG THE ITALIAN ANATOMISTS OF HIS TIME. PHYSICIAN AND MAN OF LETTERS, HIGHLY ESTEEMED BY THE SCIENTISTS OF EUROPE. HONOURED BY THE MONARCHS OF ITALY HE WAS BORN IN THIS HOUSE ON THE VIII TH OF FEBRUARY MDCCCVII WHERE FROM HIS FATHER FRANCESCO MEDICO NO OSCURO HE RECEIVED INCITEMENT AND EXAMPLE TO VIRTUE, STUDY AND WORK. THE MUNICIPALITY IN MEMORY PLACES MDCCCLXXXV.

THE COUNTRY IN THE PAINTINGS OF NATALE GUIDO FRABBONI

Natale Guido Frabboni painted his village in the very early 1980s. Views in which the square with its arcades buildings, the old rectory house overlooking the churchyard, and some residential buildings appear. The works produce a sense of disorientation in the observer, due to the artist’s search for rigour while probing the dogma of the mystery of existence. Frabboni’s Vedutism is pure fiction, the foreshortenings and street painter’s shots are interior visions of familiar places. The village pieces refer to a habitat denied to everyday life and transferred to a theatrical dimension. The works from the “Il paese” series were presented at the Galleria San Marco in Bassano del Grappa in 1980.

NATALE GUIDO FRABBONI, THE PARTISAN

Natale Guido Frabboni, before working as an artist and clerk, was a fighter in the Italian Resistance against the Nazi-Fascists. A partisan from 1 May 1944 to the Liberation, identified by the battle name ‘Gaber’, he served in the 2nd Paolo Garibaldi brigade that operated in San Pietro in Casale.

RAIMONDO RIMONDI, THE PARTISAN

Before working as a sculptor, Raimondi Rimondi was also a protagonist of the Italian Resistance in the San Pietro in Casale area. A partisan from June 1944 to the Liberation, known by the pseudonym ‘Rebel’, he participated in the organisation of the first groups of the 2nd Paolo Garibaldi brigade, acting as political commissar. At the time, the young man, who had recently returned from military service in Yugoslavia and was in contact with Italian and Yugoslav fighters, had just escaped a shooting ordered by German soldiers after a round-up.

Rimondi left us a vivid testimony on the birth of the 2nd Paolo Garibaldi Brigade:

“On 25 July 1943 I was in Yugoslavia, attached to the Alpine troops of the “Pusteria”. We returned to Trieste and here I was caught up in the events of 8 September. The next day I escaped in plain clothes with the intention of joining my family in Bologna. Then came the order to rejoin the fascist army and I, not sharing those ideas, left for the mountains of Gorizia with the decision to join the Yugoslav partisans. In Dolo di Gorizia, I managed to make contact with the Italian and Slav partisans of the city and stayed with them for about a month. Then the Germans carried out a round-up and I was taken prisoner and, with two other Bolognese friends, put up against the wall to be shot, which was avoided – as chance would have it – by the interpreter, who, although dressed as a German, was an Italian and had recognised us as Bolognese by a “sòccmel” of mine. In Gorizia, I managed to escape from inside the Artillery Barracks, which at that time was full of partisans, round-ups, and Jews destined to Germany and, almost always on foot, I managed to get back to San Pietro in Casale where my parents were displaced. There were no partisan groups yet: in the spring of 1944, there was talk of creating an organised brigade by gathering the young people from the area and especially the renegades, of whom there were many. I remember meetings to this end with Franzoni and Rosini, young men of my age who had been displaced to San Pietro in Casale, and then also with Marcello Zanetti, Enzo Biondi and Mario Testoni: it was in this way that the foundations were laid for what was later the 2nd “Paolo” Brigade, founded, of which I became the commissioner and Zanetti the commander. I took part in the Brigade’s activities, which took place in an area that was completely uncovered, where the only shelters were the river banks and in a peasant environment that was generally favourable, but also infested with spies.”

Given his artistic training, Rimondi was commissioned by the 2nd Paolo Garibaldi Brigade to design the masthead of the underground newspaper ‘La Fiaccola’. This was a periodical written and printed on a mimeograph in Maccaretolo, which was distributed by the partisans of the political organisation and the SAP in the area of San Pietro in Casale and Galliera. The texts were first written with an Olivetti ‘Ilo’ portable typewriter, then with a more powerful machine, found during a protest demonstration and the assault on the San Pietro in Casale Town Hall. The articles were an analysis of the situation, condemnation and propaganda, to invite young people to the Resistance.

Rimondi remembers his collaboration with the newspaper “La Fiaccola”:

“I remember that in late autumn of 1944, during a meeting of partisans in Maccaretolo, at the Golinelli house, it was decided to create a newspaper for the Brigade. Testoni, who strongly supported the idea, proposed calling it La Fiaccola (The Torch), and I was tasked with designing the masthead. Evidently, the assignment was given to me because they knew I had attended the Bologna School of Art and already had an interest in figurative arts. I designed the masthead and then carved it into linoleum so it could be used for stencil duplication. Two issues of La Fiaccola were published, one in early November 1944 and the other on April 1, 1945. I remember the newspaper bore the motto “All for one, one for al” and was primarily aimed at young people.”

Found in possession of a stamp design he had created for the National Liberation Committee (CLN), Rimondi was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned in a villa in Maccaretolo, San Pietro in Casale. He managed to escape a few days later and moved to Bologna for safety reasons, where he joined the intelligence service of the Unified Military Resistance Command in Emilia-Romagna (CUMER).

Rimondi recalls his arrest, detention in Maccaretolo, and subsequent escape:

“I also remember carving a linoleum stamp for the CLN, a fact that could have led to very serious consequences for me. During a search, the Germans found the stamp design on me and arrested me, locking me inside a villa in Maccaretolo, awaiting transfer to prison. I spent one night there, and the following day, news of my arrest spread quickly, leading to a spontaneous demonstration by the local population. They brought me cigarettes, food, but most importantly, moral support. Among the demonstrators were also partisans, who informed me that the Brigade intended to attack the Germans in Maccaretolo to free me. However, I said it would be enough if they gave me a pistol, which was handed to me by a partisan mingling with the crowd.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to use it. Late at night, the guard walked away, for reasons unknown (perhaps the Germans didn’t want to take the risk), and I found myself free, alone. By then, I was identified in the area, and it was clear I had to leave. It was decided I should go to Bologna and work alongside Biondi in the CUMER intelligence service. We had a radio transmitter at Via Nuova 17, outside Porta San Vitale, in the granary of the Zanotti family. Every evening, we transmitted to an English command the information we had gathered, especially regarding German troop movements. We managed to do this undetected, right up until the end of the war.”