Patron saint festival In 253 days
Saint John the Baptist and his fair
📅 Every year, on 24 June, with the Fiera di Giovanni Battista
Ostra Vetere celebrates Saint John the Baptist on 24 June, with the Fiera di Giovanni Battista held in his honor.
The village won a case about its own name. Until 19 March 1882 it was called Montenovo; on that day a royal decree gave it the name Ostra Vetere, closing the dispute with Montalboddo over which of the two could claim the ancient name of Ostra. The ruins of the Roman city of Ostra are here, at Le Muracce di Pongelli. Tradition has it that Montenovo was founded by refugees from Ostra who escaped its destruction by the Goths in 409; the documents say something else, namely that until the 12th century there was in the territory only a monastic cell dedicated to San Severo, of 1001, and the castellari of Quinzano and Collina. The name Serra Montis Novi appears in 1137 in an emphyteusis deed of the abbey of Sitria, and at the beginning of the 13th century Montenovo formed itself as a free comune, named in 1223 in a bull of Honorius III.
The year after winning the name, in 1883, the comune was granted arms divided in two: on one side the cross and the mount of six hills, on the other a phoenix in its immortality, and under the shield the motto Post fata resurgo, the town rising from the ashes of Ostra. In the arms recognised in 1934 the phoenix is no longer there. As for the rest, from 1251 Montenovo was under Jesi, to which it offered the pallio every year at least until 1398; the Ghibelline Buscareto sided with Frederick II in 1240, then went over to the Guelphs and the Malatesta, and when in 1360 Nicolò rebelled against the Church again, cardinal Albornoz had the family castle pulled down and banished the Buscareto from the Marca. It was rebuilt in 1362 by Nicolò Spinelli. Then came the sackings: Francesco Sforza's soldiery in 1443, Francesco Maria della Rovere in 1517, the Spanish mercenaries in 1522.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Ostra Vetere 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Ostra Vetere
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Ostra Vetere, but an easy day trip away.
Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola 📍 Carpi · 11 km Jesuit church of 1670-1682 in Carpi, on a Greek-cross plan, with scagliola altars and the diocesan museum. Basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta 📍 Carpi · 11 km Carpi cathedral begun in 1514 to Peruzzi's design, reopened in 2017 after the 2012 earthquake. Chiesa di Santa Maria in Castello 📍 Carpi · 12 km Romanesque pieve of 1184, the oldest church in Carpi, with a Peruzzi façade and twelfth-century frescoes. Chiesa di San Bernardino da Siena 📍 Carpi · 12 km Patron church of Carpi, begun in 1604, with the reliquary bust of Saint Bernardino of Siena.