Fabbrico

On 27 February 1945 a battle was fought here, in open country with no natural cover: the chronicles of the time counted more than thirty dead among the fascists, three partisans and one rounded-up civilian, shot in the back as he ran for safety. The partisans were Piero Foroni, Leo Morellini and Luigi Bosatelli, who came from Milan; the civilian's name was Genesio Corgini. Every year, on that date, Fabbrico stops: it is a public holiday here, the schools and every workplace close, and a procession goes from the old centre to the memorial stone just outside the village, where each time someone of national standing speaks. A few weeks later, at the Righetta, seven more partisans were killed, and the bodies could only be buried once the liberation had come.

The old name of the place is Favrega, and it comes from the broad beans they grew here; in dialect it is still Favregh. The first document that names it is of 772, and two centuries later an emperor confirmed its pieve to the bishop of Reggio. The castle was destroyed in 1557, in the wars between the da Correggio and the Este, then rebuilt and at last reduced to a warehouse; in 1676 the Guidotti family bought it, put part of it to the making and trading of textiles, and they live in it still. The village lived on farming until the middle of the last century; what changed it was a workshop opened in 1884 by Giovanni Landini, which became a tractor factory and is still one of the biggest firms in the district.