Castelnovo, which in recent years has been characterized as the main service center of the Reggio Apennines, and as a tourist and holiday resort, today aims to become the “country for sport”, thanks to the excellent equipment in the field of sports facilities.
Already now many teams, Italian and foreign, who practice various sports, come here for athletic and technical training courses. For this reason Castelnovo has been home, for some years now, of prestigious sporting events (athletics, in particular) that have brought to the Apennines the best names in the national sports scene. The tourist of the environment or sport is welcomed by a good network of accommodation facilities, in the process of further qualification. Among other things, a qualified rehabilitation center for heart patients is also located within the local hospitals. The old historic center is located in a natural basin enclosed by three reliefs covered with conifers planted in the twenties of the twentieth century (Monte Castello, Monte Forco and Monte Bagnolo).
The latter is frequented in summer by elderly and sporty joggers, and equipped with benches and bowling green. The architectural features of the town of Castelnovo are homogeneous and recurrent. A building curtain of particular value develops around Piazza I Maggio, an ancient parade ground.
The building heritage of historical interest is affected by the considerable changes that have occurred in recent decades, although it is still possible to grasp significant aspects of the ancient fabric along the old road that entered the village winding alongside the seventeenth-century oratory dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene.
A narrow passage leads to a small square overlooked by some of the oldest buildings in Castelnova (XV century ca.). Other places in the country that are worth a visit are Bagnolo, where stands the Ducal Palace built by Francesco IV d’Este in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and the ancient parish church dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, of which only a few original stone fragments remain, including a capital decorated with lions dating back to the early decades of the twelfth century. It is certainly interesting to visit the historic center on the day of the weekly market traditionally held on Monday. Established in the twelfth century, it occupies the central squares (Peretti and Martyrs of Freedom), Via Roma and Via Vittorio Veneto, crowded with people from neighboring countries. Of note is the centuries-old festival of San Michele at the end of September.
Castelnovo ne’ Monti – The Village
Castelnovo is the political, administrative and economic center of the Reggio Emilia mountains, on the important road axis constituted by the State Road 63.
Originally made up of four pivotal nuclei connected to each other, hardly recognizable due to the increase in population in recent years, the capital retains few traces of its past.
One of the few witnesses of the past centuries is the important Pieve di Santa Maria di Campiliola transferred in 1200 from Bismantova to a hill below.
Parts of the keep remain of the Castle, reduced to a short capitulated tower, edges of the defensive walls and ruins of unidentifiable structures.
The old center, located in a natural basin enclosed by three reliefs covered with conifers planted between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, has homogeneous and recurring architectural features and a building curtain of particular value around Piazza I ° Maggio, the ancient Piazza d’armi.
It was an area of Etruscan and Roman penetration, in contrast with the pre-existing Celto-Ligurian populations (Tito Livio, among others, speaks of a Suismontium, a toponym of uncertain attribution that can recall Bismantova). The Byzantines later established here the gastaldato of Bismantova and placed their important garrison on the top of the Stone (the so-called kastròn Bisimanto) which resisted until the arrival of the Lombards in the mid-seventh century. The tiny courtyard of Villola, the original village of the municipality at the foot of the Pietra di Bismantova, at the beginning of the century. XI was then placed under the protection of Emperor Henry II, at the request of the same bishop of Reggio Emilia, Teuzone. The Castrum novum (from which Castelnovo) was the work of the Canossani, and it was Matilda herself who donated it to the monastery of Sant’Apollonio di Canossa in 1111.
The first name of the village was in fact “Castelnovo del Signor Abate di Canossa”. This territory is located at the intersection of three historically important roads: on the one hand the Reggio-Luni through the Cerretani passes; on the other the Parma-Lucca through the passes of Pradarena and Radici, the third is the Lizane road between the Val d’Enza and the Passo dei Linari (or Lagastrello). In 1188 Castelnovo ne’ Monti (the definitive name from 1534, changed several times, although the first to name the town was the Este podestà Gian Battista Coriani in 1490), swore for the first time loyalty to the Municipality of Reggio.
After being enfeoffed to the Da Dallo, in 1409 it was under the Este domination. Aggregated to the Podesta of Felina, in 1480 Castelnovo itself became the capital and main center of government of much of the Reggio Emilia mountains. This function as the de facto center of the “virtual mountain province” will be maintained and increased in the centuries to come. After the end of the ancient Este regime in 1859, Castelnovo was erected as the capital of the canton, while with the subsequent restoration it was home to a single large municipality that also included the current ones of Vetto, Ramiseto, Busana and Collagna. The construction of the “military road of Lunigiana” (current SS 63) gave impetus to the old center of the country: new roads were opened, starting an impetuous building development.
Among the famous people who gave birth to Castelnovo we remember the poet Antonio Peretti (1815-1858), Carlo Franceschini, who introduced the Mazzinian Carboneria in the Reggio Emilia, and Cirillo Monzani, a leading figure in the cadres of the ministerial administration in the first period after national unification: they are all remembered in the current road toponymy.
