Rubiera

Rubiera has 14,421 inhabitants on the Via Emilia, where the Tresinaro flows into the Secchia, on the border between the Reggio and the Modena country. It is a planned town: between 1190 and 1200 the comune of Reggio built it on purpose to hold that border, with walls and a castle, and to populate it sent peasants and citizens of Reggio, promising them that they would pay no tax at all. The plan of that time can still be read today: rectangular blocks set comb-wise on either side of the road. To put up the fortress, in 1201, they used the Modenese soldiers captured at the battle of Formigine, their podestà included.

That fortress later became a prison for the gravest crimes, and there, on 16 October 1822, the summary tribunal of the duchy condemned and executed don Giuseppe Andreoli, the carbonaro priest. Once its function was over, the fort passed into private hands and fell into ruin: the people of Rubiera simply called it "the Sasso", the stone. In 1922, to straighten the line of the Via Emilia, its central part was demolished, and what was left became housing.