At the end of the 1800s, many Italian cities used to build parks for their citizens starting from the gardens of manor houses or through the acquisition of land.

In the urban centers of the mid-nineteenth century there was a great desire to raise the living conditions of the inhabitants through an improvement in hygienic but also aesthetic conditions: trees were placed in the squares and streets were built for walking.

So it was also for Bologna, that in the mid-nineteenth century was experiencing a period of transition: the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy, the construction of the railway station, the abandonment of rural activities to favor industrialization.

This led to the desire to beautify the city through the construction of new important buildings and various renovations. And it is in this context that the conception of the Margherita Gardens is located, intended as a real work of art to be experienced.

Count Angelo Tattini, municipal councilor but also exponent of the Bolognese aristocracy, proposed to buy the land for this purpose, anticipating the cost and to keep it available to the Municipality for 10 years at a price to be agreed. 

The proposal was accepted!

So Tattini bought from the heirs of Raffaele Bassi the assets located between Porta Santo Stefano and Porta Castiglione, equal to 272,537 hectares, at a cost of 150,000 lire.

However, the sale was subject to the condition that the land would only be used as a public walk and that there would be no possibility of erecting buildings nearby!

Before acquiring the land, however, the Municipality needed a project for the construction of the park; and it was in this way that Count Ernesto Balbo Bertone di Sambuy was contacted and in 1874 he drew up a project, that would followed the ideal of the English garden, which involves the combination of natural elements with artificial ones that are discovered while walking, thus giving the illusion of being in front of a place so natural that it seems almost wild. 

Sambuy decided to create a small lake as the beating heart of the park, around which wide avenues with double concentric turns wind to allow the passage of the carriages.

The Margherita Gardens were opened to the public on July 16, 1879, after just over 5 years from the beginning of the works. But the real inauguration party was held three days earlier, on July 13, with the holding of a festival in favor of the people damaged by the floods that hit the Ferrara area at that time.

​

From the book: "I giardini Margherita. Storia, racconti, immagini" by Silvia Cuttin and Adriano Agrillo (edizioni Pendragon)

The Tizzano farm extends over 230 hectares, 25 of which are vineyards, on the first Bolognese hills above Casalecchio di Reno. The southerly aspects and the dry, sunny and breezy climate of its hills are optimal elements for growing grapes, which was already practiced in 1500. Over the centuries the role of viticulture acquired more and more importance within the company, becoming the most important activity in Tizzano from the post-war period to today; in fact, it was in the 1950s and 60s that a modern winemaking cellar was built, transforming the old company granary now in disuse. However, cereal farming has not been abandoned and the company still produces excellent quality wheat and barley that the local mills in the Rhine Valley expertly transform into excellent flours. In more recent times, by recovering an ancient centuries-old olive tree, present on the estate since 1700, flanked by younger plants, Tizzano oil has also been produced with aromatic notes of exceptional value.

Bologna Bianco shines in the glass straw yellow in color, slightly aromatic in the bouquet, harmonious in flavour with savoury scents. The grapes are crushed and de-stemmed; then they are subjected to a “cryomaceration” treatment, which consists in keeping the must in contact with the skins for 24 hours at a temperature of 2 ° C. This process allows to obtain a greater extraction of the substances contained in the skins and to enhance the aromatic typicality of the Sauvignon Blanc which constitutes its base.

Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Pinot Blanc find in the territory of the Bolognesi Hills the ability to contribute each in a distinguishable way to the creation of a wine with an immediate approach, intense in both aromas and flavours.

Ideal to accompany appetizers and fish. It "marries" the tortellini in broth beautifully.

There was a time when the four characters of this story, four young and crazy horsemen of the apocalypse of modern times, were normal, or almost.

But now that time is over. Cousin Jerry is back in town, in a Nice that looks like the Bologna of the university district and DAMS, and his former crew of high school deserters has enlisted in a bloody blitzkrieg marked by surreal and ruthless assaults against a society devoted to conformism. An authentic novel of deformation that accompanies us in a fight against the indifference of a sober and respectable society, falsely alternative and glossy.

"Bastogne", Enrico Brizzi's second narrative test after his successful debut with Jack Frusciante left the group, arrived in the bookstores in '96 with the same charge of a Molotov cocktail: youthful anger and a passion for drugs, violence and fornication were told with a new style, unscrupulous and elegant in its extremism.

He made his debut not yet twenty years old with his first novel Jack Frusciante left the group, translated in twenty-four countries and became a film in 1996. 

At the time Vasco Rossi (Italian rock legend) wrote that "Bastogne" stands for "Jack Frusciante left the group" as his "Fegato spappolato (Crushed liver)" stands for "Alba chiara (Clear dawn)", and still today the hallucinatory events of Ermanno and Cousin Jerry, are able to fascinate and shock.