Famous people of Romagna
Empresses and outlaws, poets and riders, Oscar-winning directors and world champions. Romagna has given the world plenty of extraordinary people: here is who they are, what they got up to and where you can still meet them, in museums, birthplaces and fortresses.
No one matches these words.
No one in this selection.
When Ravenna was a capital
Empresses, Gothic kings and a poet in exile: the centuries when the world was ruled from Ravenna.
History and power
Galla Placidia
The empress who ruled the West from Ravenna
Daughter, sister and mother of emperors, she was first a hostage of the Visigoths and then their queen. Back in Italy, from 425 she ruled the Western Empire for her son Valentinian III, still a child, and filled Ravenna with churches and mosaics.
Did you know? The small mausoleum that bears her name, with its blue vault studded with golden stars, is one of Ravenna's eight UNESCO monuments. She, however, was most probably never buried there: she died in Rome.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Clio20, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Theodoric the Great
The Gothic king who made Ravenna the capital of Italy
King of the Ostrogoths, in 493 he conquered Italy and ruled it for over thirty years from Ravenna, keeping Goths and Romans together. He built churches, palaces and aqueducts: the basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo began as his court church.
Did you know? The roof of his mausoleum is a single block of Istrian stone almost eleven metres across, weighing hundreds of tonnes: how it was lifted up there in the 6th century is still debated.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: CNG, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Francesca da Rimini
The girl from Ravenna whom Dante made immortal
Daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, she was married to Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini and fell in love with his brother Paolo. Her husband caught them together and killed them. Dante meets them in the fifth canto of the Inferno, swept forever by the wind of passion.
Did you know? "Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving" is the line Dante gives her. The castle of Gradara claims to be the stage of their story, and still tells it in its rooms.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Anselm Feuerbach, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Dante Alighieri
The father of the Italian language chose Ravenna for his last years
Exiled from Florence, he found a home in Ravenna at the court of Guido Novello da Polenta. Here he finished the Paradiso, the last part of the Divine Comedy, and here he died in 1321. Ravenna has kept his bones ever since and has never given them back to Florence.
Did you know? The lamp of his tomb burns olive oil from the Tuscan hills, given every September by the City of Florence: almost a plea for forgiveness, seven centuries after the exile.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Sandro Botticelli, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Lords, fortresses and Renaissance
Warlords, warrior countesses and brilliant painters, among the fortresses and courts of Romagna.
History and power
Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
Ruthless warlord and brilliant patron of the arts
Lord of Rimini from 1432, he was one of the most feared warlords of the 15th century, ready to switch sides for whoever paid best. But he was also a great patron: he brought Leon Battista Alberti, Piero della Francesca and Agostino di Duccio to Rimini, and built Castel Sismondo and the Tempio Malatestiano.
Did you know? Pope Pius II hated him so much that he had him tried and burned in effigy in Rome in 1462: he went down in history as the only man ever "canonised to hell".Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Piero della Francesca, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Film, art and show business
Melozzo da Forlì
The painter of the music-making angels
A Renaissance master, he worked in Rome for Pope Sixtus IV and was the first to master the "di sotto in su" foreshortening: figures seen from below, as if flying above you. His music-making angels, now in the Vatican Pinacoteca, are among the best-loved images of the 15th century.
Did you know? At the Musei San Domenico in Forlì you can see the Pestapepe, a shop sign attributed to Melozzo: a boy grinding spices in a mortar. An advert more than five hundred years old.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: museionline.info, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Caterina Sforza
the Tigress of Forlì
The countess who stood up to Cesare Borgia
Born in Milan, she was lady of Imola and countess of Forlì, first with her husband Girolamo Riario and then alone, as regent for her son. In the winter of 1499 she shut herself in the Ravaldino fortress and held out for weeks against Cesare Borgia's troops before surrendering.
Did you know? In her spare time she did alchemy experiments and wrote down recipes for cosmetics and medicines, collected in the "Experimenti". Her youngest son was the famous warlord Giovanni dalle Bande Nere.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Scientists, violins and Romantic poets
Who weighed the air, who taught Europe the concerto and who came here for love.
Science
Evangelista Torricelli
The man from Faenza who weighed the air
Born in Rome to parents from Romagna, he grew up in Faenza and became a pupil of Galileo, then his successor as mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1644 he invented the mercury barometer and showed that air has weight: atmospheric pressure is also measured in "torr", in his honour.
Did you know? For three centuries Faenza was convinced he had been born there: only in the 20th century did research find his baptism in Rome. But he always called himself a Faentino, and Faenza considers him its own.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Lorenzo Lippi, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Music
Arcangelo Corelli
The violinist who taught Europe the Baroque concerto
From Fusignano he went to Rome, where he became the most famous violinist of his time, protected by cardinals and by Queen Christina of Sweden. He published only six collections, but his Concerti grossi op. 6 became a model for musicians all over Europe, from Handel to Bach.
Did you know? Fusignano, with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants, gave the world Corelli and Arrigo Sacchi: two masters of teamwork, three centuries apart.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Hugh Howard, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Science
Giovanni Battista Morgagni
The doctor who found where diseases hide
A professor at the University of Padua for sixty years, he compared the symptoms of the sick with what he found in autopsies. In 1761, aged 79, he published "De sedibus et causis morborum": the birth certificate of modern pathological anatomy.
Did you know? Several parts of the human body still bear his name, and the hospital of Forlì is called Morgagni-Pierantoni.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Lord Byron
Europe's most scandalous poet fell in love in Ravenna
Between 1819 and 1821 he lived in Ravenna, at Palazzo Guiccioli, for love of the young countess Teresa Gamba, married to a much older nobleman. Here he wrote part of Don Juan and joined the Carbonari who dreamed of a free Italy.
Did you know? He brought a small zoo to Ravenna: horses, dogs, monkeys, cats, an eagle and a falcon roamed his home. Today Palazzo Guiccioli houses the Byron and Risorgimento Museums.Follow in their footsteps
Musei Byron e del Risorgimento, Palazzo Guiccioli Discover Ravenna
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Thomas Phillips, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Patriots, outlaws and poets
Romagna in the 1800s: the Risorgimento, the Passatore, Pascoli and the man who set Italy's table.
History and power
Aurelio Saffi
The man from Forlì who governed Rome with Mazzini
A republican patriot, in 1849 he was one of the three triumvirs of the Roman Republic together with Giuseppe Mazzini and Carlo Armellini. When the Republic fell he lived in exile in England, where he taught Italian at Oxford; back in Italy, he was seen as Mazzini's political heir.
Did you know? The main square of Forlì bears his name, and his country villa at San Varano is now a house museum.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Pellegrino Artusi
The man who set Italy's table
The son of a grocer from Forlimpopoli, he moved to Florence and made his fortune in trade. Past seventy he published "The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well": recipes from all over Italy, up to 790 in the last editions, written with wit. It became the cookbook of the Italians.
Did you know? No publisher wanted the book, so in 1891 he printed a thousand copies at his own expense. It has never been out of print since, and every summer Forlimpopoli celebrates him with the Festa Artusiana.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Anita Garibaldi
The Brazilian revolutionary who fought alongside Garibaldi
She met Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1839 and followed him into battle in South America and then in Italy, defending the Roman Republic. In the summer of 1849, fleeing with him towards Venice, she fell ill and died aged 27 in the wetlands of Ravenna, at Mandriole.
Did you know? The network of Romagna farmers and fishermen who hid Garibaldi from the Austrians went down in history as the "trafila", and the hut in the pine forest where he took shelter is still called Capanno Garibaldi.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Gaetano Gallino, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Stefano Pelloni
the Passatore
The most famous outlaw of Romagna, "king of the road, king of the forest"
The son of the ferryman of the Lamone river, hence his nickname, he led a gang that for years raided villas, farms and whole villages of the Papal States. Their most famous raid was in Forlimpopoli in 1851: the gang locked the theatre during a show and robbed the audience and the houses of the notables. He was killed by gendarmes near Russi, aged 26.
Did you know? It was Pascoli who called him "the courteous Passatore" in his poem Romagna, and the legend of the gentleman outlaw has stuck ever since. Today his hatted face is the symbol of Romagna wines and gives its name to the 100 km del Passatore, the race from Florence to Faenza.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Aronchi, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Olindo Guerrini
Lorenzo Stecchetti
The poet of a thousand names who portrayed the Romagnoli in dialect
He signed his verse as Lorenzo Stecchetti, Argìa Sbolenfi and many other names. He moved from classical poetry to satire, often anticlerical, and to dialect: in the Sonetti romagnoli he captured the character of his fellow Romagnoli like few others.
Did you know? The Sonetti romagnoli only came out in 1920, four years after his death, published by his son Guido.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Mario Nunes Vais, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Giovanni Pascoli
The poet of the "inner child" and the dappled mare
Born in the town that now bears his name, at 11 he lost his father, shot on the road home by killers who were never found. From that grief came poems such as X Agosto and La cavallina storna. A professor in Bologna after Carducci, with Myricae and the Canti di Castelvecchio he changed the way poetry was written in Italy.
Did you know? He gave Romagna its most famous portrait: "Romagna solatia, dolce paese", sunny Romagna, sweet land. The Torre of Villa Torlonia, where his father worked as estate manager, is now a multimedia museum about him.Follow in their footsteps
Museo Casa Pascoli Villa Torlonia, Museo multimediale Pascoli Discover San Mauro Pascoli
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Benito Mussolini
The dictator who led Italy into Fascism and war
The son of a socialist blacksmith from Predappio, he was a primary school teacher and a journalist, editor of Avanti!. In 1919 he founded Fascism and from 1922 to 1943 ruled Italy, turning it into a dictatorship: he abolished parties and press freedom, signed the racial laws of 1938 and took the country to war alongside Hitler. He was shot by partisans in April 1945.
Did you know? In 1911, still a socialist, he was jailed in Bologna for protesting against the war in Libya, in the same cell as the republican Pietro Nenni from Faenza. Their paths split for ever: Nenni became one of the great anti-fascist leaders.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Marino Moretti
The poet of little things, on the canal port of Cesenatico
A "crepuscular" poet and novelist, he sang the simple everyday things in quiet words, following Pascoli. He lived between Florence and his Cesenatico, where he always came back, and wrote poems until he was almost ninety.
Did you know? His house on the canal port, with his books, letters and paintings by his friends, is open to the public as Casa Moretti.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Wikipedia italiana, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Dino Campana
The wandering poet of the Orphic Songs
Restless and unconventional, he wandered across Europe doing all sorts of jobs. In 1914 he had the Canti Orfici printed in Marradi, the only book published in his lifetime: today it is a classic of 20th-century Italian poetry.
Did you know? He had given the manuscript to Papini and Soffici, who lost it: Campana rewrote everything from memory. The original, "Il più lungo giorno", only turned up in 1971 among Soffici's papers.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Aldo Spallicci
The doctor who made Romagna his cause
Doctor, dialect poet and republican politician, he devoted his whole life to the folk culture of Romagna. At the end of 1919 he founded, with Francesco Balilla Pratella and Antonio Beltramelli, the magazine La Piê, devoted to dialect and traditions, and edited it until the end of his days.
Did you know? La Piê is the piadina in dialect: the covers of the magazine were colour woodcuts by artists from Romagna.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: autore sconosciuto, CC BY 3.0 IT, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Francesco Baracca
The flying ace who gave Ferrari its prancing horse
A fighter pilot in the First World War, with 34 victories he was the greatest ace of the Italian air force and commanded the "Squadron of Aces". He was shot down over the Montello in June 1918, aged thirty.
Did you know? A black prancing horse was painted on his plane. Years later his mother gave it to a young racing driver, Enzo Ferrari: "put my son's prancing horse on your cars, it will bring you luck". The rest is history.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
History and power
Pietro Nenni
The socialist leader who fought for the Republic
Raised in an orphanage in Faenza, he was a journalist and for decades the face of the Italian Socialist Party. An exile in France under Fascism, he fought in the Spanish Civil War; in 1946 he led the campaign for the Republic and in the 1960s he was deputy prime minister. From 1970 he was a senator for life.
Did you know? His slogan for the 1946 referendum was "Either the Republic or chaos". And as a young man he had shared a cell with Mussolini: two men from Romagna with opposite lives.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: PSI, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
The twentieth century
Cinema, ballroom dancing, television and great feats: the Romagna that made Italy dream.
Music
Secondo Casadei
The father of "Romagna mia"
Violinist, composer and bandleader, he was the king of Romagna's "liscio" ballroom music: waltzes, mazurkas and polkas written by the hundred to get farmyards and dance halls dancing. His orchestra, later led by his nephew Raoul, made liscio known all over Italy.
Did you know? "Romagna mia" began life as "Casetta mia", my little house, dedicated to his home in Gatteo a Mare. With its new title, recorded in 1954, it became the unofficial anthem of Romagnoli around the world, with millions of copies sold.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Audioenjoy, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Film, art and show business
Federico Fellini
The director who taught the world to daydream
He left Rimini for Rome at nineteen and became one of the greatest directors in history: La strada, Nights of Cabiria, La dolce vita, 8½. He won four Oscars for best foreign film plus an honorary one, and his Rimini comes back in many of his films, above all in Amarcord.
Did you know? "Amarcord" means "I remember" in Romagna dialect. The Fellini Museum in Rimini spreads across Castel Sismondo, piazza Malatesta and the Fulgor cinema, where he discovered films as a child.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Walter Albertin, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Tonino Guerra
The poet who wrote films for Fellini and Antonioni
A poet in Romagna dialect, he became one of the greatest screenwriters of European cinema: Amarcord with Fellini, Blow-Up with Antonioni, Nostalghia with Tarkovsky. In his later years he settled in Pennabilli, filling the Apennines with gardens, fountains and sundials.
Did you know? For every Italian he is still the man from the 2001 TV advert: "Gianni, optimism is the perfume of life!".Follow in their footsteps
Museo Tonino Guerra Il Mondo di Tonino Guerra Discover Santarcangelo di Romagna
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Pietro Luca Cassarino, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Giuliana Rocchi
The factory worker who became a poet
She left school after the fourth grade to go to work and became a factory worker. In 1964, during the fight against the closure of the town's rope works, she wrote her first satire in dialect. In 1980 came La vóita d'una dòna (A woman's life), read by the feminist movement abroad too.
Did you know? The linguist Tullio De Mauro called her "excellent".Follow in their footsteps
Writers and poets
Nino Pedretti
The English teacher who gave Santarcangelo's dialect its rules
He graduated with a thesis on jazz and taught English in the high schools of Cesena and Pesaro. In 1975 he published Al vòuşi (The voices), his first collection in Romagnol, an instant success. He also studied his dialect with the linguist Friedrich Schürr and set down a way of writing it.
Did you know? With Tonino Guerra, Raffaello Baldini and Gianni Fucci he belonged to E' circal de' giudéizi, "the circle of wisdom", the band of young intellectuals of Santarcangelo.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: autore sconosciuto, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Raffaello Baldini
The poet of bar-room talk who won the Viareggio Prize
He lived most of his life in Milan, as a journalist at Panorama, but always wrote in the dialect of Santarcangelo. With Furistír (Stranger, 1988) he won the Viareggio Prize, with Ad nòta (At night, 1995) the Bagutta Prize. He also wrote monologues for the theatre, such as Zitti tutti!.
Did you know? His family ran the Caffè Trieste in piazza delle Erbe in Santarcangelo: the talk of the bar's customers was his first school of poetry.Follow in their footsteps
Film, art and show business
Arnaldo Pomodoro
The sculptor of the bronze spheres that break open
Born in Morciano, he moved to Milan and became one of the great sculptors of the 20th century. His gleaming bronze forms, split open to reveal an inside of gears, stand in squares and museums all over the world. He kept working until almost 99.
Did you know? One of his "Sphere within Sphere" sculptures stands in the Vatican Museums, another in front of the United Nations in New York, yet another at Trinity College Dublin.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Pino Montisci, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Tolmino Baldassari
The trade unionist who discovered poetry at fifty
The son of a carter, he only went to school until the sixth grade and worked as a mechanic, a farmhand and for 25 years as a trade unionist. He began writing in dialect at almost fifty, after reading Tonino Guerra's I bu: he realised that real poetry could still be made in dialect.
Did you know? His surname has a single r by mistake: at the registry office his father forgot one of the two r's of Baldassarri.Follow in their footsteps
Writers and poets
Gianni Fucci
Born in France, he became a voice of Santarcangelo
He came to Santarcangelo at eight and learned the dialect as a second mother tongue. He ran the town library and in 1981 published his first book of poems, La mórta e e' cazadòur. He also worked on the common rules for writing Romagnol, published in 1986.
Did you know? We owe him the letter ê in the way Santarcangelo's dialect is written.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: autore sconosciuto, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Ercole Baldini
the Forlì Express
Olympic gold, world champion and Giro winner
Very strong against the clock and on climbs, in 1956 he broke the hour record and won the Olympic road race gold in Melbourne. After turning professional, in 1958 he won the Giro d'Italia and the world championship.
Did you know? He was the first rider in history to win Olympic gold, the road world title and a Grand Tour: nobody matched him until Remco Evenepoel in 2024.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Jack de Nijs, Anefo, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Music
Raoul Casadei
The king of liscio who got Italy dancing
Nephew of Secondo Casadei, in 1971 he took over the family orchestra and brought liscio to television and to squares all over Italy. With songs like "Ciao mare" he turned dance-hall music into a national phenomenon; today the orchestra is led by his son Mirko.
Did you know? Before becoming the king of liscio he was a primary school teacher for seventeen years, in Bellaria, Mondaino and Misano Adriatico.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Film, art and show business
Raffaella Carrà
The queen of TV, who grew up between Bologna and Bellaria
Singer, dancer and TV host, she was the queen of Italian television and a pop star in Spain and Latin America, with over 60 million records sold. Tuca tuca, Rumore, Tanti auguri and A far l'amore comincia tu got half the world dancing.
Did you know? Her real surname was Pelloni, like the Passatore's. Bellaria-Igea Marina, where she spent part of her childhood, has named its seafront after her, and in 2010 almost 500 people danced the Tuca tuca together there, setting a Guinness world record.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
From the post-war years to today
Champions, singers and comedians: many are still on the track, on stage or on the bench.
Sport and motors
Arrigo Sacchi
the prophet of Fusignano
From the family shoe factory to a football revolution
He was never a professional footballer: he worked in his father's shoe business and coached village teams. With AC Milan, from 1987, he won a league title, two European Cups and two Intercontinental Cups with a pressing, zonal game never seen before; as national coach he took Italy to the 1994 World Cup final.
Did you know? To those who reminded him he had never played at the top level, he replied: "I didn't know that to become a jockey you first had to be a horse".Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Elena Torre, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Writers and poets
Nevio Spadoni
The poet who took Ravenna's dialect onto the world's stages
The son of sharecroppers from the Ravenna countryside, he taught philosophy in Ravenna's high schools. Since 1995 he has written dialect monologues for the theatre: Luṣ (Light), staged by the Teatro delle Albe with Ermanna Montanari, has toured Italy, Europe and the United States.
Did you know? His Galla Placidia was performed in 2003 inside the Basilica of San Vitale, for the Ravenna Festival.Follow in their footsteps
Sport and motors
Alberto Zaccheroni
Zac
The Italian title with Milan and the Asian Cup with Japan
Starting from the benches of Romagna, he reached Serie A with Udinese and in 1999 won the Italian title with AC Milan. In 2011 he won the Asian Cup in charge of Japan: the first Italian coach to win a trophy with a foreign national team.
Did you know? With Baracca Lugo and then Venezia he won three promotions in a row, from Serie D to Serie B: a record.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Film, art and show business
Paolo Cevoli
The comedian who brought Romagna to TV's Zelig
From Riccione, he became famous on TV's Zelig as councillor Palmiro Cangini, an irresistible caricature of the small-town Romagna politician. Today he tours Italy's theatres with comedy shows he writes himself.
Did you know? Palmiro Cangini is the "councillor for any other business" of an imaginary Romagna village: Roncofritto.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Antonio G Colombo, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Davide Cassani
From rider to TV voice of cycling, all the way to national coach
A professional from 1982 to 1996, he won two stages of the Giro d'Italia and was a valued domestique for his team leaders. He then became the expert voice of cycling on RAI television and from 2014 to 2021 was head coach of Italy's road cycling team.
Did you know? For years, alongside Auro Bulbarelli, he explained the races to millions of Italians watching on TV: anyone who followed the Giro knows his voice by heart.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Eric Houdas, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Stefano Domenicali
From Imola to the top of Formula 1
Raised a stone's throw from the racetrack, he joined Ferrari in 1991 and was its team principal from 2008 to 2014; he then ran Lamborghini. Since 2021 he has been chairman and CEO of Formula 1.
Did you know? At the science high school in Imola he was a classmate of Mauro Gambetti, who would become a Franciscan friar and a cardinal: one class gave a boss to Formula 1 and a cardinal to the Church.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Stefano Guindani, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Marco Pantani
the Pirate
The climber who brought Italy to its feet
He grew up in Cesenatico, where his mother sold piadina from a kiosk on the seafront, and became one of the strongest climbers ever. In 1998 he won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, a feat very few have managed. Bandana, earring and attacks on the climbs: when he attacked, Italy stopped in front of the TV.
Did you know? In Cesenatico the Spazio Pantani gathers his bikes, jerseys and trophies, and on the hardest climbs, from the Mortirolo to the Galibier, there are monuments to him.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Aldo Bolzan, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Music
Samuele Bersani
The songwriter of precise words, discovered by Lucio Dalla
Born in Rimini and raised in Cattolica, he was spotted by Lucio Dalla, who had him open his concerts. From Chicco e Spillo to Giudizi universali, from Replay to Il pescatore di asterischi, he is one of Italy's most awarded songwriters, with five Tenco awards.
Did you know? He wrote the lyrics of "Canzone" for Dalla, which topped the Italian radio charts for months in 1996.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Monica Silva, pubblico dominio, Wikimedia Commons
Music
Laura Pausini
The girl from Solarolo who sings to the whole world
Born in Faenza and raised in Solarolo, she sang in piano bars with her father before winning the newcomers' section of Sanremo in 1993 with La solitudine. Since then she has been the most famous Italian singer in the world, with records in Italian, Spanish and other languages, a Grammy, several Latin Grammys and a Golden Globe for Io sì in 2021.
Did you know? With "Io sì" she was also nominated for the Oscar for best song, and in 2022 she co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Ferdinando Traversa, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Marco Melandri
Macio
250cc world champion at twenty
From Ravenna, he won the 250cc world championship in 2002, aged twenty. In MotoGP he stood on the podium many times and finished second in the 2005 championship; he then raced for years in Superbike too.
Did you know? In 1998 at Assen he won his first Grand Prix aged 15 years and 324 days: at the time the youngest rider ever to win a motorcycle world championship race.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Aconcagua, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Andrea Dovizioso
Dovi
125cc world champion and three-time MotoGP runner-up
Born in Forlimpopoli, he won the 125cc world championship in 2004. In MotoGP, with Ducati, he finished second in the championship three years running, from 2017 to 2019, taking on Marc Márquez in last-corner duels that went down in history.
Did you know? He rode his last race in 2022 at Misano, just a few kilometres from home.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Simon Patterson, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Marco Simoncelli
Sic
The best-loved curly head in MotoGP
Raised in Coriano, he won everyone over with his mass of curly hair and infectious laugh. He was 250cc world champion in 2008 and was becoming a MotoGP star when he lost his life in a race at Sepang in 2011, aged 24.
Did you know? The Misano circuit bears his name, his number 58 has been retired by MotoGP, and in Coriano the museum La Storia del Sic tells his life story.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Jearle, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sport and motors
Enea Bastianini
the Beast
The Rimini rider who became Moto2 world champion
From Rimini, Moto2 world champion in 2020, he moved up to MotoGP where he has won several Grands Prix, first with Ducati. He is one of the leading riders of the new Romagna generation.
Did you know? With Melandri, Dovizioso, Simoncelli and him, Romagna is a true factory of two-wheel champions: many grew up on minibikes and the tracks of the coast.Follow in their footsteps
Source: Wikipedia · Photo: Denkmit, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Dates, places and facts checked on Wikipedia and Wikidata on 19 October 2026. The photos are real portraits from Wikimedia Commons, with author and licence. Museums and exhibitions · Towns
Follow in the footsteps of the great Romagnoli
From Pascoli's house to the Fellini Museum, from Dante's tomb to Caterina Sforza's fortress: Romagna Transfer takes you there with a driver, with no parking worries.