The village used to be called Castellaro, a name too common by half, confusable with places all over Italy. In the second half of the nineteenth century the mayor Luigi Boldrini, who was a friend of Giosuè Carducci, asked the poet to find it a better one: Carducci went back to the Roman-era castle that tradition held to have been founded by a centurion named Darius, or Arius, and proposed Castel d'Ario. The royal decree that adopted it is dated 1867.
From here comes Tazio Nuvolari too, born in 1892, who carried this village's name onto every racetrack in the world. The territory was granted in fief to the bishopric of Trento in 1082 by Henry IV, and the prince-bishops of Trento held it, with a long Gonzaga interlude, until the abolition of the imperial fiefs. One tradition has survived here since the nineteenth century: the bigolada, the handing out of bigoli with salted anchovies on the first day of Lent.
Risotto alla Milanese · Sbrisolona
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Next up: Mary Assumed into Heaven, patron of Tazio Nuvolari's town, Sunday 15 August
Nearest airport: Verona Catullo, 24 km away
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📅 Every year, on 15 August, in the birthplace of Tazio Nuvolari
Castel d'Ario celebrates Mary Assumed into Heaven on 15 August. The town was the birthplace of legendary racing driver Tazio Nuvolari, honoured with a monument, a square and his birth house.
White and yellow flour, almonds, butter and sugar, broken by hand: sbrisolona is Mantova's cake, already served at the Gonzaga court.
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The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
