Monzuno

Monzuno lived on a road. One of the busiest links between Bologna and Florence passed through here, and it did what the old routes did: it followed the ridge instead of the valley floor, by Monterumici, Monzuno, Trasasso, Le Croci, Cedrecchia, and then on towards Tuscany. Everything else rested on that road: Monzuno was the centre of an important feudal domain, the seat of a high magistracy, of a well-known hospital and of an authoritative vicariate, later turned into a podesteria. When the Futa road was opened, the old way was abandoned, and the damage to the domain of Monzuno was direct. But that road was older than anyone thought: two men fond of local history and archaeology, Cesare Agostini and Franco Santi, have brought to light many traces of it from Roman times — today it is called the Flaminia militare, and it led from Bologna to Arezzo by way of Fiesole. Monzuno is now a stage of the Via degli Dei, the trek between Bologna and Florence that follows a good part of that line, and thousands of walkers pass along it every year. The name too may be pagan — some read Mons Jovis or Mons Junonis, the mountain of Jupiter or of Juno, and a good many Roman gods survive in the place names around here — but more probably it comes simply from mons, the mountain.

Between 1914 and 1934 the comune was crossed by the works of the Direttissima, the new Bologna-Florence railway; to get over the Setta they built the longest bridge on the line, three hundred and twenty metres on fourteen arches. It is because of that bridge that Vado, the frazione down on the right bank, was largely destroyed by the air raids of May 1944, while the capoluogo, on the mountain above the stream, suffered no serious damage. That is why Monzuno still keeps something of its own character and Vado does not: Vado was quickly rebuilt on its own ruins, following the plan of the village that had stood there, but a few metres higher up. In those same months these mountains held the Stella Rossa brigade, whose commander Mario Musolesi, called il Lupo, was from here; and part of the comune's territory lies inside the historical park of Monte Sole, where the massacre took place.