San Lazzaro di Savena ( Bolognese: ) is an Italian ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' (municipality) of some 32,000 inhabitants in the

Metropolitan City of Bologna The Metropolitan City of Bologna ( it, Città Metropolitana di Bologna) is a metropolitan city in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Its capital is ''de facto'' the city of Bologna, though the body does not explicitly outline it. It was created b ...

Emilia-Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

Geography

The town is located on the

Via Emilia The ( it, Via Emilia; en, Aemilian Way) was a trunk Roman road in the north Italian plain, running from ''Ariminum'' (Rimini), on the Adriatic coast, to ''Placentia'' (Piacenza) on the river ''Padus'' ( Po). It was completed in 187 BC. The ' ...

, a major thoroughfare for town traffic, from the city centre of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...

towards the southeast. The territory of the municipality extends towards the plain and at the foot of the first hills around Bologna. Some watercourses such as the Zena (creek), the Idice and the

Savena The Savena ( egl, label= Bolognese, Sèvna) is a river in the Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions of Italy. The source of the river is in the province of Florence west of Firenzuola in the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano mountains. The river flows nort ...

, after which the town was named, flow through the town. Within the territory of the municipality we can find the Spipola Cave with its doline and the chalky rock emergences of the Farneto and the Croara, that give shape to a

karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, Dolomite (rock), dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathe ...

compound (there are about 50 caves and natural hollows crossed by a long hypogeous stream), protected by the Parco dei Gessi Bolognesi e Calanchi dell'Abbadessa (Natural park of Bologna's chalky rocks and the Abbess's gully).

History

The area of San Lazzar has been inhabited since ancient times, as testified by findings from the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...

(stone implements) and the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

; along with nearby

Castenaso Castenaso ( Bolognese: ; la, Castrum Nasicae) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is located around away from Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna. Sports Associazione Sportiva Dilettantist ...

, it witnessed a flourishing

Villanovian civilization The Villanovan culture (c. 900–700 BC), regarded as the earliest phase of the Etruscan civilization, was the earliest Iron Age culture of Italy. It directly followed the Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture which branched off from the Urnfield ...

. Documents state the site for the town once housed a ''lazzaretto'' or

leprosarium A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Afr ...

. These were often located outside of cities where people could be segregated from the population. The town was autonomous municipality in the Napoleonic Era (1810). It was afterwards readmitted to Bologna and gained back autonomy with the help of

Carlo Berti Pichat Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to: *Carlo (name) *Monte Carlo *Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia *A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince Cha ...

after 1827. Nowadays, after the building expansion of the 1970s, San Lazzaro is one of the most populated towns in the province of Bologna and is the main seat of a large number of factories.

Main sights

In San Lazzaro the museum of

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

"Luigi Donini" gathering findings of ancient times has been recently opened.

Sports

The town's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

team is A.C. Boca San Lazzaro, currently playing amateur football in

Serie D The Serie D () is the top level of semi-professional football in the country. The fourth tier of the Italian league system, the competition sits beneath the third professional league, Serie C. It is administered by the Lega Nazionale Dilettanti ...

after being relegated from

Serie C2 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione was the fourth highest football league in Italy, the lowest with a professional status. Usually it consisted of 36 teams, but in the 2011–12 season, there were 41 teams divided geographically into two divisions of 2 ...

after the 2006–07 season. The former World Cup alpine ski racer Alberto Tomba was born in San Lazzaro di Savena.

External links

Googlemap: Mappa satellitare di San Lazzaro

Parco dei Gessi Bolognesi e Calanchi dell'Abbadessa

Comune di San Lazzaro di Savena
{{DEFAULTSORT:San Lazzaro Di Savena Cities and towns in Emilia-Romagna Villanovan culture