Carpi

North of Modena is Carpi, a wealthy, workaholic town with an illustrious past, one of the few small towns in the region worth going out of your way for. It is also one of the few towns not founded by the Romans or earlier. Carpi, named for the groves of hornbeam (carpinus) that once stood here, grew up as a fortified settlement under the Lombards in the 8th century. In the Middle Ages Carpi grew into a prosperous city and established a comune, but its greatest days came between 1331 and 1525, when it was governed by the Pio family, clever fellows who could keep their little city independent while doing great service as patrons of the arts. Like so many other minor signori around Italy, the Pio lost control in the Wars of Italy. After a two-year Spanish occupation, Carpi and its contado ended up in the hands of the Este.

The city centre is dominated by the vast Piazza dei Martiri, formerly called the Borgogioioso. At least once in Carpi you will be reminded that this is the third-largest piazza in Italy; whether or not this is true would be hard to say, but it is nearly a thousand feet long, and it leaves an unforgettable impression. With a crowd receding into the distance, it seems like some perspectivist Renaissance painting of the ‘ideal city’; without them it becomes positively oceanic, and crossing it on a still Sunday afternoon one feels tempted to stop the lone passer-by and ask for news from land.