Granarolo dell'Emilia

The comune changed its name because it had changed its address. Born shortly before Unification as the comune di Viadagola, with its offices in an eighteenth-century villa, from November 1860 it was left without a home and settled into private houses in nearby Granarolo; having at last bought a building in 1871, in 1876 it took its present name. Granarolo had meanwhile become the most populous frazione, because working life was shifting along via San Donato, where the Bologna-Malalbergo tramway ran, dismantled after the second war.

The rest is told by the countryside: the Roman centuriation is still legible in the fields, and for centuries this plain served as the granary of Bologna. The coat of arms granted in 1884 displays a sheaf, chosen for its assonance with the «grano» in the place name. Every frazione has its parish church: the one of San Vitale, rebuilt in 1682, keeps paintings of the Bolognese school, among them Guercino and Anna Sirani.