Sasso Marconi has 14,545 inhabitants in the first hills of the Bolognese Apennines, where the Setta flows into the Reno, beneath the crag that gives the town its name: the Sasso della Glosina, a spur of the Pliocene Contrafforte. The full name is recent. The comune used to be called Praduro e Sasso; in 1935 it became Sasso Bolognese, and in 1938, the year after the scientist's death, it took the name it has now. Here, at Pontecchio, stands Villa Griffone: it was Guglielmo Marconi's family home, the place where he made his first wireless experiments, and today it holds the museum and the mausoleum that keeps his remains.
From the Romans there survives instead a work that is still doing its job: the aqueduct that carried the water of the Setta to Bologna, in part still functioning. The harder memory is that of the war: the Gothic Line ran through here, and in the hamlet of Colle Ameno the Germans installed a military hospital, a prison camp and a sorting centre — today it houses the Aula della Memoria. In 2010 the town received the gold medal for civil merit and the war cross for military valour, for what its people went through and did in those years.
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📅 Every year, on 29 June; on 8 September, for over three centuries, the Antica Fiera di Pontecchio is held
Sasso Marconi celebrates Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June; on 8 September and the connected weekend, for over three centuries, the hamlet of Pontecchio has hosted the Antica Fiera di Pontecchio, also known as the «Fira di Sdaz», a village fair with shows, farming tradition and local produce.
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The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Sasso Marconi, but an easy day trip away.
