Quattro Castella

Quattro Castella has 12,909 inhabitants at the first slopes of the Reggio Apennines, and the name says exactly what you see: four castles on four hills, from east to west Monte Vetro, Bianello, Monte Lucio and Monte Zane. They were probably the northern defensive line of the Canossa domains. Of the four only Bianello is still standing whole: of the others there are ruins, and at Monte Zane a wall of the keep came down not long ago because of earthquakes. The town's coat of arms simply draws those hills: it is a canting arms, a shield that says the name.

Bianello had been born as a lookout tower facing north, towards the Po plain, and it became the favourite house of Matilde di Canossa. It was here that the emperor Henry V named her imperial vicar: the reconciliation between the Empire and the woman who had been its most stubborn adversary. Every May the town re-enacts it with a historical procession. Since 2002 the castle has belonged to the comune, which bought it outright together with the land around it, and it can be visited.