The comune uses a formal version of its own arms, copied from the fresco that decorates the clock tower through which one enters the enclosure of the Rocca: the saint with his sword, the village on the Enza, and all around it an elaborate silver frame, ornamented with the arms of the families that held jurisdiction over the fortress — Canossa, Estensi, Scaligeri, Gonzaga, Contrari, Ricci. One family, however, is missing, and it is the one that governed for the greatest number of years: the Gherardini di Montagliari, who arrived in 1633 and stayed until the Napoleonic regime cancelled feudal rights. It was they who built the Rocca in the shape it has now and who raised the clock tower on which that very frame is painted; and the marquis Gian Francesco Gherardini was even called, for a short time, to be the town's first citizen at the unification of Italy. Theirs is the only coat of arms absent from the village blazon.
The name is made of two halves: San Paolo, to whom a chapel was dedicated inside the fortress — hence the Castrum Sancti Pauli — and the Enza, the Apennine stream that runs along the boundaries. Until 1955 the official name was San Polo d'Enza in Caviano, because the place was earlier called Plebs de Caviliano, first cited in a document of the emperor Otto II of the fourteenth of October 980. This is Matildic country: in 1070 it passed from the church of Reggio to Bonifacio di Canossa, and in October of 1092 the emperor Henry IV crossed the drawbridge of this castle before the clash with the troops of countess Matilde. The fifteenth-century tower is perfectly preserved, with its two pointed-arch doors, a large one for the carts and a small one for those on foot, protected by a deep moat. Today the Rocca houses the town hall and a museum of the partisans' association dedicated to the memory of Salvo d'Acquisto; in the parish church of the castle there is an Adoration of the Magi by Niccolò dell'Abate. San Polo was freed from the nazi-fascists on the tenth of April 1945, and for the fortieth anniversary Graziano Pompili made it Il Gigante Abbattuto, the giant brought down.
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📅 Every year, on 25 January, feast of the saint's conversion
San Polo d'Enza celebrates Saint Paul of Tarsus on 25 January, the feast of the saint's conversion. Within the town walls, the annual historical re-enactment «Dopo Matilde» is held, along with a thriving weekly market of local produce.
Cooked grape must and wine vinegar aged in wooden barrels: Aceto Balsamico di Modena has held Protected Geographical Indication status since 2009.
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The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside San Polo d'Enza, but an easy day trip away.
