The best road cycling routes around Marzabotto

Memorial of the massacre by German troops in reprisal during World War II. Several partisans and civilians were shot and left to fall into the gullies below, where a large white cross now stands.

Small village with bars and grocery stores for refreshments and rest along the way

Very nice view of the gullies

Madonna dell’Acero, a charming place surrounded by immense forests of beech and fir trees, located at an altitude of 1200 meters above sea level. The name of the place derives from an old print with the image of the Blessed Virgin dressed in Greek style, affixed to the trunk of a tree located in a clearing in the 14th century. Legend has it that two deaf-mute children, while they were busy guarding their flock at pasture, were caught in a storm and found refuge under an enormous maple tree. During the raging bad weather, the Madonna appeared and made them regain their hearing and speech. At home they reported that the Virgin wanted to be venerated in that place. The parish priest of Rocca Corneta, informed of the apparition, thought of transporting the image to the parish and celebrating the event in the presence of the Bishop. But on the day scheduled for the celebrations the sacred image had disappeared. The Madonna, the locals say, had returned to the Maple, leaving signs of herself on all the tree trunks along the road. It is also said that the marked trees could not be cut down: a man, who wanted to try to cut down one, located in his chestnut grove, was crushed under the branches of the tree. A small chapel thus arose around the Maple that enclosed the tree stripped of all its branches. The current suggestive sanctuary, built in a very simple style, like a group of small houses next to each other, dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is one of the most important places of remembrance of anti-fascism in Bologna. Here, in December 1944, groups of partisans were led by the Nazi-Fascists on several occasions and then shot. Their bodies were found, after the war, in the ravine below. Almost thirty years later, thanks to the economic effort of the Municipalities that created the “Committee to Honor the Fallen of Sabbiuno” and with the mostly voluntary and free work of designers and workers, what is considered one of the most evocative monuments to the Resistance was created. The path from the farmhouse to the site of the massacre is marked by fifty-three boulders with the names of the recognized victims engraved on them. The fifty-fourth was placed to remember all the other fallen up to the symbolic number of one hundred, as their real number could not be ascertained. The curved concrete wall represents the deployment of the soldiers and the red barbed wire the falling of the bodies to the valley where a white cross is placed. The project is by the Gruppo Architetti Città Nuova, and the inauguration took place on 2 June 1973.

VERY PARTICULAR AND VERY PRETTY CHURCH IN THIS STYLE

Sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso The history of the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso begins in 1283 when friar Giovanni da Panico dedicated a small oratory to the Virgin Mary in a cavity of the nearby Rupe, called Sasso di Glòsina. In 1787 the Sanctuary was closed due to the detachment of a large layer of sandstone. In 1831 the new sanctuary was rebuilt based on a design by Angelo Venturoli. The new façade, with a portico with three arches, is set back on the same level as the bell tower and the municipal clock tower, added in 1888 by the engineer Tito Azzolini. Destroyed by Allied bombing in April 1945; in 1950 the reconstruction based on a design by the engineer Paolo Graziani was concluded. The interior, with a single barrel-vaulted nave and three chapels on each side, houses the Madonna del Carmine with Saints within a sumptuous frame, dated 1674, and the Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints of the Neapolitan school (1734). The apse is decorated with a modern polychrome stained glass window with the Madonna and Child and a depiction of the church.

Beautiful place, only saw this when I woke up in the morning Very nice cycling environment too