Langhirano

The etymology of Langhirano is uncertain and the hypotheses are four: the most widespread takes it from the medieval Latin langaria, a long narrow strip of land, which is exactly the shape of the site along the bank of the Parma at the mouth of the valley; another from Lago Ariano, for the marshes that were there when the Lombards, then Arians, founded the village; another again from the Lombard lagar, a military post; and the last from a lake full of frogs later drained, which the sources themselves declare to be without historical foundation. What is certain is that the town is known for its ham, and the reason is the air: at the mouth of the Val Parma the currents of the valley meet those of the Apennine, and it is that meeting that cures the hams.

Langhirano began as a small borgo dependent on Mattaleto, and it took centuries to reverse the relationship: between 1821 and 1831, when it was already the district capital of the duchy, the town hall was moved to Mattaleto itself, and until 1944 the parish remained San Michele at Mattaleto. On the twenty-eighth of September 1911, at the station of the tramway to Parma, a charge by the carabinieri against a protest over the departure of soldiers for the Italo-Turkish war killed four people and wounded seven more. Between 1941 and 1943 the comune was one of those assigned the free internment of foreign Jewish refugees: fourteen people, most of them from Sarajevo. Almost all escaped capture; four members of the Israel family were arrested as they tried to reach Switzerland, and in 2020 stumbling stones were laid in front of the house that had taken them in.