Reggiolo

Historians have never agreed on the name of Reggiolo, and the hypotheses are four. Razolo would come from the razze, the thorny scrub covering land newly emerged from the marsh; or it would simply be little Reggio, since it was Reggio that populated the place and gave it a fortress; or it would come from radius, for the radial plan of the settlement; or again from the dialect ràsolo, a vine in its first years. The first certain mention is in a deed of purchase of the fourteenth of May 1044 by Beatrice, mother of Matilda of Canossa. Until 1142, when the road from Reggio was laid out, the only way here was by water.

Then the village landed in the middle of the long quarrel between Reggio and Mantua over the land beyond the Po. In December 1184 the two cities signed an agreement to administer it jointly, promising each other peace and mutual aid for twenty years: when the term expired the war resumed punctually, and in 1223 the Mantuans razed Reggiolo and pulled down its tower. In 1242 a new one was built further north, then sixteen metres high: it is the keep of the fortress, later raised to its present thirty-four. In 1265 the Sessi of Rolo stormed the town and sold it to Cremona for three thousand Reggian lire; three years later the buyers had to give it back, and got their money returned.