Forlì (Emilia Romagna): what to see


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What to see in Forlì, itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including Piazza Aurelio Saffi, Cathedral of Santa Croce, Abbey of San Mercuriale and Palazzo del Podestà.


Tourist information

Located in the historical region of Romagna, Forlì was founded along the Via Emilia in 188 BC.

It is a town in the Po Valley, located five kilometers away from the beginning of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and about twenty six kilometers from the Adriatic Riviera.


The first human settlements in the area date back to the Paleolithic period, as evidenced by the finds found at Monte Poggiolo.

During the Renaissance the history of the city was intertwined with Italian national history, in fact Caterina Sforza, widow of Girolamo Riario, who was in turn the nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, married Giovanni dei Medici in 1497, called il Popolano.

From this union was born Ludovico, called Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, who was the famous captain of fortune father of Cosimo I dei Medici, who was the first Grand Duke of Tuscany.


Caterina Sforza, after a heroic resistance in Forlì, near the fortress of Ravaldino, was defeated by Cesare Borgia, who wanted to expand the papal possessions in Romagna.

After a weak attempt to return the Ordelaffi, Pope Julius II, visiting Forlì in 1506, managed to obtain peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

Under papal rule, Forlì represented the center of pontifical Romagna and went through a period of peaceful civil life, especially after the judiciary of the Nineties Pacific was established in 1540, at the behest of Giovanni Guidiccioni.


In 1630, the city managed to save itself from the plague that had seriously infected the rest of Italy and Romagna, for this reason the inhabitants dedicated the column raised in Campo dell'Abate to the Madonna, having attributed the event of the escaped danger to the intervention miraculous of the Virgin.

What see

Among the main places and monuments to visit is the twelfth-century Abbey of San Mercuriale, overlooking the Aurelio Saffi square and considered a city symbol for its central position and the high bell tower in Romanesque style.

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The cult building, which has a beautiful portal with thin, finely sculpted light marble columns, has an interior with three naves where some paintings by Marco Palmezzano are kept.

Do not miss the Cathedral of Santa Croce, dating back to 1425 and rebuilt in the nineteenth century.

Noteworthy are two fifteenth-century palaces, Palazzo del Podestà and Palazzo Albertini.

The Palazzo del Podestà, which was built around 1460 above the remains of a previous building, has a facade made of local terracotta and a portico with pointed arches adorned with angular leaf capitals, including the ancient cross of the people and the coat of arms of the Ordelaffi.

In addition to this, the two floors of the building have orders of single and double lancet windows.

On the facade there is a balcony on the main floor, built in about 1920 to hide the traces on the wall left by the cage that was hanging outside the building to expose the condemned still alive or their corpses.

Palazzo Albertini was owned by a dynasty of pharmacists, in the period between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


The building, which extends over a portico with round arch and profiled by a terracotta ring, has a beautiful facade built with exposed bricks and divided vertically through Corinthian style pilasters.

The mullioned windows are decorated with Istrian stone, while the noble floor is aesthetically lightened by the well proportioned loggia and enhanced by a terracotta barrier.

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