Solarolo

Solarolo is a village that was drawn: three parallel streets and one that cuts across them all, as was done in the towns founded in the Middle Ages. The name appears for the first time on 8 July 993, as Solarolius, and it is the name of a holding; to read of a castrum Solarolii one has to wait for 1138, the year in which the men of Faenza destroyed it in the struggle against Bologna for the land between the Santerno and the Senio. They rebuilt it, the Faentini again, around 1341. At the point where the two main streets cross, the archpriest's church was raised; around it there was a palisade with a single gate, facing west, and not even a market square: buying and selling were done outside the village, between the gate and the mill canal. Around 1460 the Manfredi put up a new fortress, taking in the tower the Bolognese had built.

Then Solarolo changed hands a good many times. In 1500 Cesare Borgia stormed Faenza and the village, which could expect no help, surrendered of its own accord; in 1514 it was given in pledge to the Gonzaga, and the rule of Mantua lasted until 1573, with Isabella d'Este governing in person for ten years. The earthquake of 1688 made the fortress uninhabitable, and from then on it was dismantled piece by piece. The worst blow, though, came much later: for four months, between December 1944 and the following March, the front stopped along the Senio, and the final offensive of 9 April 1945 left fifty-five per cent of the buildings of the centre destroyed and another twenty-five badly damaged. The day before the liberation the Germans, as they left, mined and blew up the tower of the town hall. From here comes Laura Pausini.