In 1152 the Po broke the embankment at Ficarolo and changed course, and in changing course it cut a village in two: Santa Maria Maddalena and Pontelagoscuro had been one and the same until then, and since that day they have been two, one on the left bank and one on the right. The marquisate of the Ferrarese Polesine, entrusted by the lords of Ferrara to the marquises de' Contrari, was made of exactly three pieces: Gurzone, Santa Maria Maddalena and a settlement called Le Casette. Le Casette took the name of Occhiobello only in the eighteenth century. The territory stayed with the Este until 1598, when Alfonso II died without heirs and the duchy passed to the Papal State.
The river has gone on deciding. The postwar rebuilding was halted again by the flooding of the Po on 14 November 1951; and Riccardo Bacchelli, in Il mulino del Po, mentions Occhiobello as the village of the calafatari, the carpenters who built the floating mills on the river. Giuseppe Berto names it three times in Il male oscuro: his father had been the commander of the village's carabinieri station. Near here, after the congress of Vienna, the battle of Occhiobello was also fought, in which the king of Naples Joachim Murat was defeated by the Austrian general Johann Maria Philipp Frimont.
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📅 Every year, on 14 February; Saint Lawrence, co-patron, is celebrated on 10 August instead
Occhiobello celebrates Saint Valentine on 14 February; the other patron, Saint Lawrence, is celebrated on 10 August in the church dedicated to him.
📅 Every year, on 10 August; Saint Valentine, co-patron, is celebrated on 14 February instead
Occhiobello celebrates Saint Lawrence on 10 August, in the church dedicated to him; the other patron, Saint Valentine, is celebrated on 14 February.
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