○ 1260 AD : THE CASTLE OF VERGIANO
§ Vergiano, from its origins to today §
Vergiano is one of the oldest and characteristic villages of the Savena Valley. According to some scholars, the first nucleus was built around the 7th century, when several Germanic tribes went up the valleys of the bolognese mountains creating small military and agricultural communities. In some cases, the barbarians took possession of places already inhabited. This could be happened even in Vergiano, because the name is certainly of Roman origin.
The Germanic invaders, men of high stature and stocky build, belonged maybe “gigantic” skulls and human bones, found in large quantities in 1750 in the nearby village of Zaccarlina. The name Zaccarlina comes, not surprisingly, from the Lombard Zahhar, “muddy land”. Unfortunately those remains, instead of being sent to the Sciences Institute in Bologna, were blessed by the priest, then destroyed and buried in the local cemetery.
The most ancient quote of this village is in a parchment of 1260, where it is said that in the castle of Vergiano took refuge some members of the Machiavelli family, who fled after the battle of Arbia, better known as battle of Montaperti, disastrous to the Guelphs of Florence.
Over the castle of Vergiano, consisting of a small fortress surrounded by stone walls, was built the church that an ecclesiastical document of 1378 cites as “S. Alessandro di Verzignano”. During the centuries, that building changed considerably its appearance.
The medieval church, renovated in the sixteenth century, was demolished in 1888 and rebuilt in its present form, adding to his shoulders the great canonical. The work was completed in 1913. On that occasion was also strengthened a new bell tower, which was built in 1800 on the former bell tower.
The village overlooking the church, nn the side of Mount Corialdolo, during the XIV century was built the current village with a Town Hall. That building is lost, but it’s possible that were close the house called “the Tower”.
Vergiano was a separate municipality from Monghidoro until 1796, when the Napoleonic administration reorganized and he grouped together a number of municipalities.
The oldest parts of the village still visible date back to the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the dates carved on some stone lintels: 1537 and 1550. Other houses, although undated, were built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Among the most important feasts of the village, must remember at least one dedicated to St. Mamante, patron of farmers, and another in honor of the Madonna del Monte, in memory of the vow made by the local people in 1855 to call for the end of the cholera epidemic.