Monghidoro

History

Due to its geographical position Monghidoro, which the writer Giordano Berti has described as the "Crossroads of Europe", in the course of the centuries became a necessary passage between the Po Valley and Central Italy. The name of Monghidoro is thought to be dating back to the times the Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Langobards, who were pillaging and looting at will up and down the Italian peninsula around the 8th, 9th century AD. It is believed that a Gothic settlement lasted long enough to give its name to the locality of ("Goths' Mountain"), but a folk etymology theory links the name to ("Golden Milking"), perhaps connected to the many green pastures that abound in the surrounding area. The town, in its current form, originated in 1264 when the commune of Bologna created a vanguard here to counter the expansion of the Republic of Florence and in 1246, as a result of the complex politics of Italian city states of that period, the village was fortified to counter the continued border skirmishes and was given the nickname of (in local Emilian ) which literally translates as "Unload the donkey"; this because the village sits at the top of a harsh ascent, which takes the traveller from 598 m to 841 m and it was indispensable to rest the beasts of burden following the climb. In 1507 Monghidoro was annexed to the Papal States, following the fortunes of Bologna and its territories. The Olivetan Order of Benedictin monks (Olivetans) began building a monastery in the village centre in 1528. In 1796, with the arrival of Napoleon in Italy, the comune became part of the Cispadane Republic until 1815, when the Congress of Vienna decided to return the territory to Bologna and the Papal States. From about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, Monghidoro…

Geography

The territory of Monghidoro borders the following municipalities: Firenzuola, Loiano, Monterenzio, Monzuno, San Benedetto Val di Sambro. The town sits on a ridge of the Apennines, between two river valleys, Savena and Idice. The main road, joining Bologna to Florence, is the SP65. Traces of a Roman road, Flaminia minor, joining Florentia with Felsina can still be found at the top of Mount Oggioli, approximately south of town. The territory surrounding the municipality is, for the largest part, mountainous with elevations ranging between a minimum of above sea level to the north-east to a maximum of on its southern flank.

Most-observed species

• Lady Orchid

  Orchis purpurea Huds. · Liliopsida
  132
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  111
• Green-Winged Orchid

  Anacamptis morio (L.) R.M.Bateman, Pridgeon & M.W.Chase · Liliopsida
  106
• broad-leaved anemone

  Anemone hortensis L. · Magnoliopsida
  101
• Common Buzzard

  Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  98
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  90
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  87
• Dwarf Elder

  Sambucus ebulus L. · Magnoliopsida
  86

Most recent

• M 4.2 — 2026-03-26
  6 km NNW of Montale, Italy
• M 4.3 — 2026-01-13
  1 km NNW of Fornace Zarattini, Italy
• M 4.6 — 2026-01-13
  2 km N of Fornace Zarattini, Italy
• M 2.5 — 2025-03-04
  2 km NNW of Carrara, Italy
• M 3.7 — 2024-02-17
  5 km SSE of Modigliana, Italy
• M 4.1 — 2024-02-17
  3 km SE of Basilicanova, Italy