PLACES OF INTEREST

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  OLIVETO

  Oliveto, an important village belonging to the Municipality of Monteveglio, is located just a short distance from the town, on the right bank of the Samoggia River, on a hill 224 m high. Its panoramic position provides lovely views of the Samoggia valley, the Padana plains, and the ring of the Appennine Mountains including the imposing peak of Mt. Cimone and others of the Tuscan-Emilian range. Inhabited since prehistoric times, the hill was also home to Etrucans and perhaps Romans. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Oliveto was called Casale Sociorum and then Casale Sociolo. The name was later extended to include a cluster of houses at the foot of the hill and then subsequently changed from Sociolo to Soziore and finally was called Stiore, as the little foothill hamlet is still known. In the 10th century Casale Sociorum took on the name of the hill on which it stands, Monte Oliveto, so called because of the thousands of olive trees which made up the vegetation at the time, and finally its current name of Oliveto.
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  MONTEBUDELLO

  Montebudello is situated on a hilltop, two and a half km from the town of Monteveglio. The village is divided into two residential areas, almost a kilometer and a half apart, the first clustered around the castle, the second around the church. The original name of this locality was Sant’Andrea in Corneliano, after St. Andrew, to whom the church is dedicated, and Corneliano, recalling a renowned, ancient Roman family from the period of colonization. The hill on which the castle is located was called Monte Bidello, meaning custodial mountain, according to Medieval Latin terminology derived from Frankish. The name dates back to 1033. Many centuries later, when the residential area near the castle, Monte Budello, and the one near the church, Sant’Andrea in Corneliano, ended up touching each other, it was the name of the castle-centered settlement to take prevalence and remain. This meant that it was the name of the higher settlement to be adopted by the lower one, exactly the same aswhat happened with Oliveto and Stiore, with reference to Casale Sociolo. Montebudello was also home to an ancient, rural church, which broke off from that of Monteveglio in about the 8th century.