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Information about Cavriago in the Province of Reggio Emilia

Cavriago is a dynamic, productive and modern town which has experienced substantial economic development over recent years. Its geographical position, in the foothills of the Apennines between Reggio Emilia and Sant’Ilario D’Enza, means that it is well-placed in relation to the area’s main transport and communication links.

Cavriago: it appears that the name comes from the Latin CURVUS AGER, referring to the hilly nature of the area. Another suggestion is that the name comes from the Latin word CUPRUM (copper), perhaps indicating the place where the red (or copper-coloured) earth begins.

Whatever the correct etymology may be, the first known reference to the town is in a map of 1 December 996 of the Parma Capitulary Archives where Countess Rolenda, the illegitimate daughter of Hugo, King of Italy, donated the castle and the chapel of “Corviaco” to a certain Paulone “a freeman and a faithful follower”.
This courtier thus became the first ruler of Cavriago and was probably the founder of the Bovini or Bruini family who dominated the town for more than four centuries. This was not without ferocious military and political struggles – due to the delicate strategic position of Cavriago Castle, located exactly between the lands of Parma and Reggio.
While wars and famine followed invasions of locusts and plagues, different nobles fought among themselves for Cavriago Castle which in the meantime, with the increasing population, was built with massive perimeter walls.

An old Parma chronicle refers to a battle fought outside Cavriago in 1215.
If they had to submit to a feudal lord, the inhabitants of Cavriago prefer to be under the yoke of the Este family which had promised to grant them various privileges. It was thus under the rule of Borso D’Este, in 1458, that the Ducal Canal was dug to “bring water and with this, fertility, to thousands of hectares of cultivated land”.
Still with particular regard for the town, in 1465 Borso D’Este offered the fiefdom of Cavriago to his favourite Teofilo Calcagnini. This latter was responsible for the production of the “Cavriago Charters”, the first complete collection of laws, drawn up on the basis of pre-existing local customs.

Calcagnini was not however, able to enjoy the generous gift for long. As soon as the internecine struggles between the various little Italian states flared up again, Cavriago was once more at the mercy of the various contenders. In 1482 on the one side there was Ercole I D’Este (the Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio) and on the other the Venetians, supported by Counts Rossi of Parma and Guido Torrello of Montechiarugolo. The latter was able to take advantage of a strategic error by Ercole D’Este who had left Reggio ungarrisoned, taking over and sacking Montecchio, then turning his attention to Cavriago and Reggio. At this point the inhabitants of Cavriago, tired of the depredations suffered at the hands of Reggio, offered the town spontaneously to Torrello. This incurred the wrath of the Council of Elders which, on 7 December, asked Ercole to reconquer Cavriago and solve the problem once and for all by razing the castle to the ground.

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