モンティアーノの洞窟・トップ16

Romagna beautiful all year round

This route runs along quiet roads

Beautiful hamlet at the top of a beautiful climb

In the 13th century it was a possession of the Malatesta family, under whom the town managed to prosper until the abolition of feudalism at the dawn of the 19th century. After the brief Napoleonic period, the municipality passed to the Church in 1816, followed by the Risorgimento uprisings, the passage of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy. (Source: https://www.ilturista.info/guide.php?cat1=4&cat2=8&cat3=6&cat4=157&lan=ita)

The etymology of the name Roncofreddo is uncertain, as are the origins of the town. The first documented information dates back to the documents of the Bavarian Code (an ancient administrative register of the Church of Ravenna dating back to the 7th-10th centuries, currently kept in Munich) where in n.70 mention is made of the concession by an archbishop of Ravenna to Tybalt , son of Leone del Duca Orso, of an estate called Fundum Roncofrigido. (Source: http://www.comune.roncofreddo.fc.it/c040037/zf/index.php/servizi-aggiuntivi/index/index/idtesto/20041 )

and exact origins are not documented, it can be hypothesized that around the year 1000 the locality was a possession of the Ravenna church. For years disputed between the Church and the municipality of Rimini, a first fortified tower was probably built in the 13th century. The first real fortress, built by the municipality of Rimini, dates back only to the 14th century. Possession of the Malatesta family until 1335, it was conquered by Francesco degli Ordelaffi, lord of Forlì and subsequently ceded to the Montefeltro family, to then return under the control of the Holy See and subsequently in 1433 again of the Malatesta family. In 1485 it returned to the control of the archbishop of Ravenna and was enfeoffed to the Roverella family of Cesena who held it until 1745. Important expansions and the transformation from a castle to a summer residence date back to this period, and at the same time the construction of homes on the ancient wall circuit was encouraged, demolishing the previous ones closest to the palace and creating the hanging garden in their place. The Roverellas were succeeded in 1745 by the Guiccioli, a family that held the castle until 1960, the year in which it was sold to the current owners, the Volpe counts.

characteristic passage

We go up towards Monteleone, a small hamlet of Roncofreddo with only 34 inhabitants, 364 meters high and an orange flag. The medieval village arranged in a crescent shape is very small and the castle which has been transformed into a country residence since the 18th century is characterized by an access ramp covered in grass. Monteleone was a fiefdom of the Malatesta family, subsequently the castle was the property of three families: the Roverellas until 1745, the Guicciolis until 1970 and finally the Volpes. Today the square is named after Lord Byron, an English poet, due to the events that united him with Teresa Gamba, wife of Count Guiccioli, owner of the castle. Byron was in Italy from the spring of 1819 as a servant knight to Guiccioli's wife, following her in various residences: Venice, Ravenna and Monteleone. The letters, preserved in the Classense Library in Ravenna, testify that there was an intimate relationship between the two. Byron was also a friend and involved in the Carbonari activities of Teresa's brother, Pietro Gamba: the two left Liguria together to go and fight in Greece for the war of independence. Byron remains an important traveller. It was he who coined the concept of the "fatal gift of beauty", that is, the impact that Italy has on the senses to such an intensity that it blurs vision and confuses critical judgment.