Piazza dei Martiri is one of the largest squares in Italy, a Renaissance rectangle that the Pio — lords of Carpi for three centuries — designed as their calling card: on one side their castle, now a museum, on the other the long portico that still carries the shops. Knitwear did the rest: the Carpi textile district has dressed the fashion labels for decades.
Carpi is the most populous comune in the province after Modena, and the most populous in all Emilia-Romagna among those that are not provincial capitals: a real city, which also leads the Union of the Terre d'Argine together with Soliera, Novi di Modena and Campogalliano. A few kilometres away, the camp of Fossoli — from which Primo Levi too was deported — is today a place of national memory, with the Museum of the Deportee in the castle to complete the story. Lambrusco and tortelli keep the Emilian side high.
Basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta · Chiesa di San Bernardino da Siena · Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola and 2 more
Tagliatelle al Ragù · Aceto Balsamico di Modena
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Next up: Saint Bernardine of Siena, patron celebrated for five hundred years in the city of the Pio family, Thursday 20 May
Nearest airport: Bologna Marconi, 42 km away
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📅 Every year, around 20 May, for about 500 years
Carpi celebrates Saint Bernardine of Siena around 20 May, with the Sagra di San Bernardino held for about five centuries; the patronal church dedicated to him holds frescoes by Bernardino Loschi and Vincenzo Catena in its most notable chapel.
Basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta Carpi cathedral begun in 1514 to Peruzzi's design, reopened in 2017 after the 2012 earthquake. Chiesa di San Bernardino da Siena Patron church of Carpi, begun in 1604, with the reliquary bust of Saint Bernardino of Siena. Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola Jesuit church of 1670-1682 in Carpi, on a Greek-cross plan, with scagliola altars and the diocesan museum. Chiesa di Santa Maria in Castello Romanesque pieve of 1184, the oldest church in Carpi, with a Peruzzi façade and twelfth-century frescoes. Cooked grape must and wine vinegar aged in wooden barrels: Aceto Balsamico di Modena has held Protected Geographical Indication status since 2009.
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The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Carpi, but an easy day trip away.
