Cento (; Northern Bolognese: ; City Bolognese: ; Centese: ) is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and ''

comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

'' in the province of Ferrara,

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

History

The name Cento is a reference to the centuriation of the

Po Valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

. Cento's growth from its origin as a little fishing village in the marshes to an established farming town took place in the first few centuries in the second

millennium A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...

. The Bishop of Bologna and the

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of Nonantola established the Partecipanza Agraria, an institution in which land would perpetually be redistributed every twenty years among the male heirs of the families who constituted the initial core of the community in the 12th century. In 1502, Pope Alexander VI took it away from the dominion of the Bishop of Bologna and made it part of the

dowry A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's (woman's) family to the groom (man) or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price ...

of his daughter

Lucrezia Borgia Lucrezia Borgia (18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was an Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She was a former governor of Spoleto. Her family arranged ...

, betrothed to Duke Alfonso I d'Este. It was later returned to the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

in 1598. South-east of the city lies the small historic fortification of

Pieve di Cento Pieve di Cento ( Bolognese: ; "parish of Cento") is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about north of Bologna. History The origins of the town date back to the upper ...

Main sights

*''Palazzo del Monte di Pietà'' (18th century), housing the Civic Gallery. It has paintings by the local artist Guercino. The latter's works can be seen also in the ''Basilica Collegiata San Biagio'', ''Santa Maria dei Servi'', the church of the Rosary, also designed by him, and, in the ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (: ''frazioni'') is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' ('municipality') in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidat ...

'' of Corporeno, the 14th-century church of ''San Giorgio''. *The ''Rocca'' (Castle), a massive square building with square towers. Built in 1378 by the bishop of Bologna, it was enlarged by Giulio della Rovere, the future pope Julius II, in 1460. *''Palazzo del Governatore'' (Governor's Palace, 1502). It is home to the '' Galleria d'arte moderna Aroldo Bonzagni''. *''Porta Pieve'' (14th century), the sole surviving gate of the four once existing. * Santa Maria Maddalena, Baroque style 17th-century Roman Catholic church

Culture

Cento is the European's city of Carnival and it is twinned with Rio carnival.

People

* Marco Zoppo, painter * Benedetto Gennari, painter * Cesare Cremonini,

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

* Giovan Francesco Barbieri best known as Il Guercino, painter * Bartolomeo Gennari, painter * Ercole Gennari, painter * Benedetto Gennari II, painter * Cesare Gennari, painter * Benjamin D'Israeli, grandfather of British Prime Minister

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...

* Antonio Lamberto Rusconi,

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

* Bartolomeo Campagnoli,

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist * Giuseppe Alberghini, cardinal * Ugo Bassi, patriot * Leone Carpi, political, economist and journalist * Giuseppe Borgatti,

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

* Aroldo Bonzagni, painter * Carmen Lenzi Mozzani, classical guitarist * Mario Maccaferri, classical guitarist, lutist as well as guitar and ukulele maker * Giovanni Malagodi, politician and economist * Ferruccio Lamborghini, industrialist * Corrado Ardizzoni, Olympic cyclist * Jessica Rossi, sports shooter * Luigi Mozzani, classical guitarist as well as guitar and violin maker

Trivia

The nearby center of Renazzo is known in the astronomical community because of the Renazzo meteorite, which fell in 1824 and it is considered the prototype of a class of carbonaceous chondrites known as " CR group" (where the "R" comes from the name Renazzo).
Meteoritical Bulletin Database

International relations

Cento is Twin towns and sister cities, twinned with: *

L'Aquila L'Aquila ( ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in central Italy. It is the capital city of the Province of L'Aquila and the Abruzzo region in Italy. , it has a population of 69,902. Laid out within medieval walls on a hill in the wide valley of the A ...

, Italy *

Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; ; ; ; Serbian language, Serbian: ''Стони Београд''; ), known colloquially as Fehérvár (), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the Regions of Hungary, regional capital of C ...

, Hungary * Vicente Lopez, Argentina

References

External links

*
Official website

{{Authority control Castles in Italy Cities and towns in Emilia-Romagna Municipalities of the Province of Ferrara Lucrezia Borgia