Cicogni
Encyclopedia
Cicogni is a frazione
of the comune
of Pecorara
(Province of Piacenza
) in the Italian
region Emilia-Romagna
, located about 40 km southwest of Piacenza
.
, in his Géographie ancienne, historique et comparée des Gaules, identifies Cicogni with the fundus Siconianus mentioned in the Tabula Alimentaria Traianea, found in 1747 in Veleia
. Surely, Cicogni was a possession of the Bobbio Abbey
, established by St. Columbanus
in 614, in 1420 it became part of the Duchy of Milan
and, in 1545, of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza; in 1748 (because of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
) it found itself on the border with the Kingdom of Sardinia
: ever since, it had a customs
office, a prison
and a small garrison
to vigilate on the borders and on the illegal practice of the contraband
. In order to settle this questions, the two neighboring States in 1766 signed a formal agreement where Cicogni is appointed like Ducal Custom. In the 1860 it was united to the Kingdom of Italy
, by the annexation of the Duchy.
In 1943-1945, during the Second World War, some partisans
were killed by Nazis
around and in the village itself. One of them, Mario Busconi (killed on the path that leads to the cemetery), was insigned of the Bronze Medal of Military Valor.
traditions, particularly about the beginning of the spring, celebrated with an its own feast in the first days of May.
It's also renowned for the beautiful walkings in its forest
s (being surrounded by them), full of mushroom
s, chestnut
s and a wide variety of flora
and fauna
(especially roe deer
s, boar
s and fox
es): besides, here it’s possible to taste the traditional dishes of the regional
cuisine.(List of Italian dishes#Emilia-Romagna).
The village has its own Pro Loco
, whose target is the embellishment and the promotion of the place, along with the Municipality
of Pecorara
.
The local church: built in the 1812 (on the ruins of the old one, built in the 15th century), it has a stone facade
that hides the interiors, painted in the Rococo
style by Angelo Capelli.
Frazione
A frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...
of the comune
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Pecorara
Pecorara
Pecorara is a comune in the Province of Piacenza in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 160 km northwest of Bologna and about 30 km southwest of Piacenza...
(Province of Piacenza
Province of Piacenza
The Province of Piacenza is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Piacenza.The province has 273,689 inhabitants . Its total area is 2,589 km². There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Piacenza...
) in the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
region Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
, located about 40 km southwest of Piacenza
Piacenza
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
.
History
Charles Athanase WalckenaerCharles Athanase Walckenaer
Baron Charles Athanase Walckenaer was a French civil servant and scientist.-Biography:Walckenaer was born in Paris and studied at the universities of Oxford and Glasgow. In 1793 he was appointed head of the military transports in the Pyrenees, after which he pursued technical studies at the École...
, in his Géographie ancienne, historique et comparée des Gaules, identifies Cicogni with the fundus Siconianus mentioned in the Tabula Alimentaria Traianea, found in 1747 in Veleia
Veleia (Italy)
Veleia, an ancient town of Aemilia, Italy, situated about 20 miles south of Placentia. It is mentioned by Pliny among the towns of the eighth region, though the Veleiates were Ligurians by race. Its inhabitants were, in the census of Vespasian, found to be remarkable for their longevity...
. Surely, Cicogni was a possession of the Bobbio Abbey
Bobbio Abbey
Bobbio Abbey is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus...
, established by St. Columbanus
Columbanus
Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil and Bobbio , and stands as an exemplar of Irish missionary activity in early medieval Europe.He spread among the...
in 614, in 1420 it became part of the Duchy of Milan
Duchy of Milan
The Duchy of Milan , was created on the 1st of may 1395, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, purchased a diploma for 100,000 Florins from King Wenceslaus. It was this diploma that installed, Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia...
and, in 1545, of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza; in 1748 (because of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 ended the War of the Austrian Succession following a congress assembled at the Imperial Free City of Aachen—Aix-la-Chapelle in French—in the west of the Holy Roman Empire, on 24 April 1748...
) it found itself on the border with the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
: ever since, it had a customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
office, a prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
and a small garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
to vigilate on the borders and on the illegal practice of the contraband
Contraband
The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....
. In order to settle this questions, the two neighboring States in 1766 signed a formal agreement where Cicogni is appointed like Ducal Custom. In the 1860 it was united to the Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, by the annexation of the Duchy.
In 1943-1945, during the Second World War, some partisans
Italian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
were killed by Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
around and in the village itself. One of them, Mario Busconi (killed on the path that leads to the cemetery), was insigned of the Bronze Medal of Military Valor.
Tourism
Cicogni is known for his folkloristicFolklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
traditions, particularly about the beginning of the spring, celebrated with an its own feast in the first days of May.
It's also renowned for the beautiful walkings in its forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
s (being surrounded by them), full of mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
s, chestnut
Chestnut
Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...
s and a wide variety of flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
and fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
(especially roe deer
Roe Deer
The European Roe Deer , also known as the Western Roe Deer, chevreuil or just Roe Deer, is a Eurasian species of deer. It is relatively small, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapted to cold environments. Roe Deer are widespread in Western Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from...
s, boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...
s and fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
es): besides, here it’s possible to taste the traditional dishes of the regional
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
cuisine.(List of Italian dishes#Emilia-Romagna).
The village has its own Pro Loco
Pro Loco
In Italy, Pro Loco are grass-roots organizations that seek to promote some particular place, almost always a town and its immediate area; pro loco is a Latin phrase that may be roughly translated "in favor of the place"...
, whose target is the embellishment and the promotion of the place, along with the Municipality
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Pecorara
Pecorara
Pecorara is a comune in the Province of Piacenza in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 160 km northwest of Bologna and about 30 km southwest of Piacenza...
.
Monuments
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
that hides the interiors, painted in the Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style by Angelo Capelli.