Forlimpopoli

Forlimpopoli has 12,982 inhabitants on the via Emilia, between Forlì and Cesena, and the name is Roman: Forum Popilii, probably from the consul Publius Popillius Laenas. In 1360 cardinal Albornoz escaped an attempt on his life here, and the following year he took his revenge: the town was partly destroyed, the bishop's seat was taken from it and passed to Bertinoro, and in place of the demolished cathedral a fortress was built, which is still there. In a papal survey of 1371 the place is no longer called Forlimpopoli but Salvaterra, and a chronicle of those years says simply that the town no longer existed. A few years later Sinibaldo Ordelaffi, having made peace with the Church, had it rise again with a circuit of walls and gave it back its own name.

The most famous man born here is Pellegrino Artusi, author of the cookery book that taught the whole of Italy to eat. The reason his family left is in the chronicles too: in 1851 Forlimpopoli was sacked by the band of the brigand Stefano Pelloni, known as il Passatore, and among the victims of the robbery were Artusi's father and one of his sisters. Two other things: in the territory flint tools have been found, worked by men of the Homo erectus group about seven hundred thousand years ago; and in 1890 the town obtained a royal training college for elementary teachers thanks to Giosuè Carducci, who took the matter up personally with the ministry. Its first director was his brother Valfredo, and the school still carries his name.