Cento gave the world the Guercino, and the Guercino left it the highest concentration of his works anywhere: the picture gallery bears his name, and in the church of the Rosario, of which he was prior, he wanted the fifth chapel on the left for himself and his family, and arranged it himself. Many other canvases, though, are elsewhere: the Saint Francis that stood in San Pietro is at the Louvre, the Glory of Paradise at Toulouse, the Virgin and Saint Louis in Brussels, and a Saint Bernard has been lost. The earthquake of 2012, which cost one life here and brought down the church of Buonacompra, gave something back: in the restoration of palazzo Provenzali there reappeared, under a nineteenth-century false ceiling, a frieze painted by the Guercino with his pupils and a wooden ceiling with the Ptolemaic constellations.
The rest of Cento's story is made of water and of land held in common. The town is born of a community of peasants draining the marsh, recognised by the bishop of Bologna; and out of that work came the Partecipanza agraria, in which the inhabitants shared the burdens and the benefits while keeping the land in collective ownership — and which still exists. In 1376 a decree separated Cento from Pieve di Cento; then, in 1648, the Reno broke its banks so violently that the river went and laid itself between the two towns, and nature made the separation final. In 1502 pope Alexander VI gave Cento as a dowry to Lucrezia Borgia for her marriage to Alfonso d'Este, and the palazzo del Governatore was built for that wedding. And the carnival, today twinned with the one in Rio de Janeiro, is so old that the Guercino painted it in a fresco: when the Tasi goes by, what goes by is a feast a seventeenth-century painter had already seen.
Basilica di San Biagio · Chiesa dei Santi Sebastiano e Rocco · Chiesa di San Lorenzo and 3 more
Tagliatelle al Ragù · Coppia Ferrarese
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Next up: Saint Blaise, patron of the town whose Carnival was already depicted in 1615 by Guercino, Wednesday 3 February
Nearest airport: Bologna Marconi, 22 km away
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📅 Every year, on 3 February
Cento celebrates Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr, on 3 February, in the basilica dedicated to him; the town is today known above all for its historic Carnival, already depicted in 1615 in a fresco by the town's own painter, Guercino.
Basilica di San Biagio Cento's Baroque cathedral church, reopened in 2018 after the earthquake: an elliptical dome and two Guercino p Chiesa dei Santi Sebastiano e Rocco Cento's sixteenth-century church of the plague saints, which in 1964 lost its bell tower and part of its façad Chiesa di San Lorenzo The parish church of Casumaro, rebuilt several times since the fifteenth century and reopened in 2020 after th Chiesa di San Pietro One of Cento's oldest churches, thirteenth-century, with a five-bay portico: three Guercino altarpieces once h Palazzo Provenzali The house in Cento with Guercino's frieze and a wooden ceiling painted with the constellations: it is private. Rocca di Cento The fortress the Bolognese built in Cento from 1378: a keep, three corner towers and the cells used until 1969 Flour, lard, oil and sourdough starter, a soft knot at the centre and four thin horns: coppia ferrarese has held Protected Geographical Indication status since 2001.
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The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Cento, but an easy day trip away.
