In 1910 a meteorite fell here, and since then it has been called Vigarano. It is not a local curiosity: that meteorite is considered the prototype of a whole class of carbonaceous chondrites, known throughout the world as the CV class, where the V stands for the name of this village in the Ferrara plain. They are the rocks that contain the inclusions with the oldest radiometric ages of all the materials of the solar system: the oldest matter known belongs, by scientific convention, to a class named after a comune of seven thousand people. And while we are on things that came from far away, it is worth adding that Carlo Rambaldi was born here, the special-effects artist who won three Academy Awards.
The name, by contrast, is Roman: Vicus Varianus, probably the estates of a Varius, along the road that led to Este and Altino. Everything else here has been decided by water. The territory has been subject for centuries to the floods and the shifting courses of the Po and the Reno, and the traces are still visible in the form of embankments and old abandoned beds. In the Middle Ages the main settlement stood where Vigarano Pieve is today, on the main course of the Po; then, in the twelfth century, the breach at Ficarolo moved that course northwards and the river, quite simply, left. The Reno went on flooding until the eighteenth century, when it was channelled where it runs now. The southern part of the territory was held by the Mainardi, a Ghibelline family of Forlì origin, who built a tower there called della Mainarda: from that tower comes the name of the capoluogo. The coat of arms, granted in 1907, takes the black and white of Ferrara, of which the village was a hamlet, and the three hands of the counts Mainardi of Bertinoro — but changed: where the Mainardi had three left hands, the comune put in two right ones and one left. In May 2012 the Emilia earthquakes did grave damage to the agricultural and industrial structures, and the comune was the epicentre of a strong aftershock.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 13 June, for Vigarano Mainarda
Vigarano Mainarda celebrates Saint Anthony of Padua on 13 June; the hamlet of Vigarano Pieve instead celebrates Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June.
📅 Every year, on 29 June, for Vigarano Pieve
The hamlet of Vigarano Pieve, in the town of Vigarano Mainarda, celebrates Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June; the town of Vigarano Mainarda instead celebrates Saint Anthony of Padua on 13 June.
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.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Vigarano Mainarda, but an easy day trip away.
