The building where the Town Hall of Rocca San Casciano is located was built between 1936 and 1937 following the demolition, in 1935, of the old Palazzo Tassinari belonging to the homonymous family.
The latter was demolished to build the current Via Corbari and the Iron Bridge as we remember the plaque on the ground floor of the town hall.
The building was inaugurated together with the national road by Rachele Mussolini on November 7, 1937 and is presented in pure style littorio: precise lines, light colors (green and cream) and geometric shapes all clear characteristics of rationalist architecture.
The building is dominated by the Littoria tower, 16 meters high, which seems supported by two stylized beams that frame the monumental door and support the balcony.
Outside the palace is placed a bronze monument to remember the martyrs of the Resistance and several commemorative plaques.
The first of them recalls the poet Giuseppe Mengozzi, born in Rocca San Casciano in 1841, famous for his poem “La Cerere della Romagna Toscana” composed in 1888 and considered by many the last of the great Latin bucolic poems.
The work describes the rural life of the Romagna Toscana and contains suggestive descriptions of the beauty of the Tuscan-Romagna hilly landscape, family life in the country house, agricultural work, silkworm breeding and threshing machines.
There is also a description of his native country:
“Di Rocca San Cascian l’antica Terra
Della Tosca Romagna a capo siede,
Ove di Temi il tempio a’ rei fa guerra,
E autorità governativa ha sede.
Quivi, se vecchia tradizion non erra,
Grande e ricca città sorse un dì in piede;
Sassatica fu detta, ma di questa,
Del nome in fuor, vestigio oggi non resta.”
There is also a plaque that recalls Father Damiano Poggiolini, born in Rocca San Casciano in 1851, famous for being the official organist at the Sanctuary of La Verna. On his death he left an invaluable heritage of sacred music – composed by him – both instrumental and vocal much of which is manuscript and still preserved in the archive of the Sanctuary.
There are also more recent tombstones, commemorating respectively the civilian victims of the biennium 1943-1944 and the fiftieth anniversary (1959-2009) of the foundation of the detachment of Traffic Police of Rocca San Casciano.
Inside the palace there are two objects of local and Risorgimento historical importance.
It is the plaque placed in the entrance hall of the building that contains the result of the plebiscite held between 11 and 12 March 1860 with which it was decreed the annexation of the Tuscan territories to the Kingdom of Italy. Annexation formalized by Royal Decree No. 4014 of 22 March 1860.
In the council room, finally, is preserved the uniform belonged to Robusto Tassini – son of Pietro Tassini and Luisa Francini, carpenter, born in Rocca San Casciano 3.3.1846 – voluntary party with Garibaldi not yet of age and, as can be seen from the bonetto kept with the shirt and confirmed by the roles preserved in the archive of the Royal Army of Turin, framed in the 10′ company, 2′ battalion, 6′ regiment.
Of him it is known that he participated with Garibaldi in the campaign of Trentino, framed in a department considered elite that of bersaglieri volunteers or garibaldini trained and armed as the bersaglieri Regi.
He participated with his department in the defense of Crocedomini Pass, forced by the Austrian mountain troops and at the Battle of Bezzecca on 21 July 1866. He was awarded the silver medal for the Campaigns for the Unification of Italy.
He participated with his department in the defense of Crocedomini Pass, forced by the Austrian mountain troops and at the Battle of Bezzecca on 21 July 1866. He was awarded the silver medal for the Campaigns for the Unification of Italy. The latter, in solid silver, was presumably requisitioned during the twenty years during the campaign called “gold for the homeland”.
Recently, to make up for this lack, the Committee of the Romagna Toscana for the promotion of Risorgimento values, in the person of its President dott. Luigi Pieraccini, donated to the Municipality of Rocca San Casciano a new medal to replace the original lost.
Credits: Article written by Avv. Elisa Rabiti
