Castelnuovo Rangone

Castelnuovo Rangone has 14,116 inhabitants in the upper Modena plain, on the right bank of the Tiepido stream. The name appears for the first time in a deed of donation of 1025, which speaks of houses and land "in Castro Novo super ripam fluminis Tepidi de mane": that is, on the bank of the Tiepido "from the morning", which was the way of saying "to the east". In 1391 the marquis of Ferrara invested the Rangoni with the fief, and the village — then simply called Rangone — was a square of walls with a ditch, a tower and a permanent garrison. With Castelvetro, the neighbouring town, the rivalry was keen, over boundaries and above all over pride.

The name, though, Castelnuovo lost and won back. In 1796 the French closed the age of the Rangoni and renamed the town Castelnuovo in Piano; in 1815, with the Restoration, the comune was actually abolished and reduced to a section of Spilamberto; and only in 1860 was it re-established and given back its old name. Of the castle the tower remains: in 1865 the comune bought what was left of it, pulled down the walls and the gate, levelled the ditches and turned the Rangoni palace into the town hall. Recent digs have also brought back to light a stretch of the thirteenth-century wall.