Timetable of extra-urban routes
Transport service
840 000 216 - Contact Center Seta (Monday-Saturday from 07:00 a.m. to 07:00 p.m.; Sunday from 09:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m., closed on weekday holidays)
840 151 152 - Railway Call Center
Tickets can also be purchased in the tobacconist shops (tabaccheria).
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Here are the maps of the 32 Municipalities of the local editorial staff of Reggio Emilia:
Reggio nell'Emilia
Albinea
Bagnolo in Piano
Bibbiano
Boretto
Brescello
Cadelbosco Sopra
Campagnola Emilia
Campegine
Casalgrande
Castellarano
Castelnovo Sotto
Cavriago
Correggio
Fabbrico
Gattatico
Gualtieri
Guastalla
Luzzara
Montecchio Emilia
Novellara
Poviglio
Quattro Castella
Reggiolo
Rio Saliceto
Rolo
Rubiera
San Martino in Rio
San Polo d'Enza
Sant'Ilario d'Enza
Scandiano
Vezzano sul Crostolo
Altitude: 36 m
Inhabitants: 8.252 (updated to May 31st, 2024)
Postal code: 42018
Weekly market day: Saturday
Patron Saint: San Martino (November 11)
Hamlets: Gazzata, Stiolo, and Trignano
0039 0522 636711 - Town hall
Town hall of San Martino in Rio
San Martino in Rio
By car
From Reggio Emilia (15 km): take the National Road SS468 to Correggio. At Fazzano, take the Provincial Road (SP) and follow road signs to San Martino in Rio.
From the Carpi exit of the A22 motorway (8 km): follow the road signs to San Martino in Rio.
By bus
Public transport service bus bus No. 41.
The area of San Martino in Rio was in ancient times covered with marshland and forests.
The first documents in which Saint Martin from Tours, the Patron Saint, and the castle are mentioned date back to the first half of the XI century.
In 1115 the area, at that time belonging to the Canossa family, was feuded to the noble Reggio Emilia family of Roberti from Tripoli, who kept control until 1430, when they were usted by Nicolò d'Este.
In the first half of the XVI century, San Martino in Rio was subject to the raids of various armies, and the wars that followed led to poverty and plague.
In 1768, after the end of the Este Duchy, the territory was assigned to Paolo d'Aragona and then to the French. It became part of the province of Modena from 1815 to 1859 and was the protagonist of Risorgimento riots.
The Estense Fortress, after being destroyed by Federico Barbarossa in 1167, was rebuilt with imposing towers.
The square-plan structure keeps intact a single square corner tower, with Ghibelline battlements and a machicolation-based defence system. Inside, the most significant elements are the chapel of St. John with ogival forms (XV century) and several rooms (noble apartment) with painted ceiling coffers, frescoes and stuccoes from the XV-XVIII centuries.
It is now the seat of the Municipality’s cultural services and hosts the Museum of Agriculture and Rural World, the Coppelli Art Gallery, the Civil Library, the Historical Archive and the Open Archive for Henghel Gualdi.
The Museum of Agriculture and Rural World, opened in 1968 and renovated in 1994, hosts a selection of the most important findings from the farming and handicraft culture of the middle Reggio Emilia plain.
The different sections are dedicated to: work in the fields, the cultivation of hemp, wine production, breeding and presence of animals, spinning and weaving, production of ropes and whips, manufacture of brooms, production and processing of shavings, mill and milling process, cheese factory and cheese-making, pig slaughtering, and the rural home.
The Car Museum is a private collection that hosts, in a big industrial shed, more than forty classic cars and specimens of historical interest.
May Festival - Last Sunday of May
Performances, entertainment, funfair, art exhibitions, concerts.
Pigiatura in Piasa - First Sunday of October
Free tastings of the best productions of local wines, sale of local traditional products, opening of the Estense Fortress and the Museum of Agriculture and Rural World with guided tours.
San Martein Festival - Second Sunday of November
Historical parade, food and wine market, market of farm products, art and crafts, hobbies and medieval market.
Via Barbieri, 12 - 42018 San Martino in Rio 0039 0522 636133
info@museodellauto.it Museo dell'Automobile
Open by reservation to be requested at: info@museodellauto.it
Free entrance
San Martino in Rio
By car
When coming from Reggio Emilia (15 km), take National Road SS468 travelling in the direction of Correggio. At Fazzano, take the Provincial Road (SP) and follow signs to San Martino in Rio.
From the exit Carpi of the A22 motor-way (8 km), follow the signs to San Martino in Rio.
By bus
Public transport service bus bus No. 41
The arrival of the first vintage car in San Martino in Rio, a peaceful village located on a plain in the province of Reggio Emilia, can be traced back to 1956. The bolognese Domenico Gentili (who died in November 2001), collected cars far and wide across Italy, gathering them in the courtyards and under the canopies of his company (the Panigal soap factory at Borgo Panigale near Bologna). As these were no more, he accepted the hospitality offered to him by Giulio Campari, the late owner of Campari & C., (to which Panigal had been linked via a contract for the supply of animal fats) and the friendship of Barighin, a.k.a. Emilio Storchi Fermi.
This kind of museum-collection (the museum could not yet be fully named as such) was filling up with more new local and fortuitous finds: a dozen fabulous and unprecedented specimens arrived in San Martino in Rio, retrieved by Barighin from every part of Italy.
In short, San Martino in Rio became one of the most important national and European centres for collecting.
On 3 November 1963 the City Council approved the design of a warehouse to be used to house the collection, that is, a true and proper museum. On 1 September 1966 Barighin and his friends transported around one hundred old cars, motorcycles, bicycles, carriages, farm wagons, etc., to their final home (about 1,000 square metres under cover).
After a not lucky period after the sudden death of Barighin in 1975, the Museum today
covers an exhibition area of 650 square metres in which there are about forty cars, a dozen motorcycles, some bicycles and a meeting room and offices for carrying out various activities.
The Museum is part of various cultural circuits and together with the Scuderia San Martino is ASI-federated and shares its statute in recognition of international motoring culture.
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Corso Umberto I, 22 - 42018 San Martino in Rio 0039 0522 636726 - Office
0039 0522 636740 - Museum
museo@comune.sanmartinoinrio.re.it Agriculture and Rural World Museum
The Museum is located on the ground floor of the Estense Fortress.
Monday through Friday
9.00 - 12.30 by reservation only
Saturday
9.00 - 12.30 free entry
Sundays and holidays
1 0 - 12.30 and 15 - 18.30 (summer time 15.30-19) paid entrance with the possibility of a guided tour of Rocca Estense
CLOSED EVERY SUNDAY IN AUGUST AND FOR AUGUST 15TH. GUIDED TOURS OF THE FORTRESS WILL START AGAIN IN SEPTEMBER.
Info and reservations on the telephone number 0039 0522 636726 (Office) / 0039 0522 636740 (Museum) or at the email address museo@comune.sanmartinoinrio.re.it
Museum entrance
Full ticket: Euros 2.00.
Reduced ticket: Euros 1.00 (children aged 12-18, university students, people over 65 and groups exceeding 10 people).
Free ticket: children under 12, residents, disabled and their helpers, donors of material to the Museum, Icom members).
Guided tours of the Museum (upon reservation only)
Full ticket: Euros 4.00.
Reduced ticket: Euros 2.50 (children aged 12-18, university students, people over 65 and groups exceeding 10 people).
Free ticket: children under 12, schools, disabled and their helpers.
Guided tours of the Fortress + entrance in the Museum
Sunday and holidays: start at 10.00, 11.15 a.m., 4.00 and 5.30 p.m.
Full ticket: Euros 5.00.
Reduced ticket: Euros 3.00 (children aged 12-18, university students, people over 65 and groups exceeding 10 people).
Free entrance: children under 12, disabled and their helpers.
By car
When coming from Reggio Emilia (15 km), take National Road SS468 travelling to Correggio. At Fazzano, take the Provincial Road (SP) and follow road signs to San Martino in Rio.
From the Carpi exit of the A22 motorway (8 km), follow the road signs to San Martino in Rio.
By bus
From Reggio Emilia, Piazzale Europa: public transport service, bus No. 41.
The museum, built in 1968 and restored in 1994, offers a wide selection of the most significant relics of rural and handicraft culture of the mid-plain in the Reggio Emilia area. There are sections dedicated to: field work, hemp cultivation, viticulture, breeding, spinning, weaving, cordage, whip and broom manufacture, shaving production, mill, cheese factories, pork-butchering, rural house.
The museum is located in the halls of the Estense Fortress (building founded between the XII and the XVIII centuries, one of the most interesting in the region Emilia-Romagna) and is divided into four sections: territory, rural world and agricultural production, places of processing (e.g. hemp, shaving, millet, flour, meat, cheese) and rural house. This is the result of a research developed by a group of experts who collected and preserved a large amount of material, oral and documentary proof of the local rural world, as it was until the beginning of this century, before the modern mechanization. There are also a library and archives for photos, slides, videos, and so on.
Via Facci, 16 - 42018 San Martino in Rio
Phone 0039 0522 698135 - Parish of San Martino Rio
See the indication to reach San Martino in Rio
The church of San Martino was mentioned in the Papal Bull of 1144-1146 with the title of Chapel in the rural community of Prato. In 1395, Filippo Roberti son of Nicola founded the Chapel of San Giovanni. Since then, the church has always been distinct from the parish or main church of San Martino in Rio.
During the Bishops’ visits that took place between 1543 and 1593, the Church of San Martino “in castro” and the Chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista “in arce seu in fortilicio” have always been referred to as two separate entities.
In the late 16th century, the Marquis Filippo I from the House of Este, one of the most illustrious feudal lords of San Martino, was granted permission by Pope Gregory XIV to build a collegiate church in his tiny district capital. In 1591, the Pope founded the Collegiate Church with a Papal Bull which removed the status of parish from three other churches, namely the Archpresbyteriate of Prato, the Priory Gazzata, and the Rectorate of San Martino, and thereupon granted the estates to the new Collegiate Church.
In 1599, following the demolition of the old church, the image of the Madonna del Pilastro was removed from the painting of the “Santissima Trinità” attributed to Domenico Tintoretto, son of Jacopo. The image of the Virgin was placed in the new building, together with the 14th-century capital to be used as a baptismal font, bearing the coat of arms of the first feudal lords of the village, the Roberti da Tripoli family.
The new church was dedicated to St. Martin, Bishop of Tours and St. Venerius the Martyr, whose relics are conserved in an old reliquary donated by Margherita di Savoia Este, Marchesa of San Martino in the 18th century.
The feudal lords of the village, the Marquises of the House of Este San Martino, commissioned and funded the construction of the new church which started in 1600, almost on the same site as the original 11th-century church.
The church has a Greek cross layout with four corner chapels, making it into a square plan. The presbytery was subsequently added, as were the chapels of the House of Este, now dedicated to the Holy Sacrament, and of the Cristo Morto (Dead Christ). The church interior has a nave and two aisles, with ten altars and a dome.
In 1700, one last chapel was added by converting the former sacristy. Above the point of intersection of the cross plan, there is a dome surmounted by a lantern, and four other smaller domes above the side chapels. The church underwent restoration works in 1720, 1797, 1856, 1892, and finally in 1934. Construction of the neoclassical façade started in the second half of the 18th century. By 1800 one of the twin towers planned for each side of the presbytery was completed and by the mid-19th century, the now transformed façade was also completed.
The church interior is interesting from both an architectural and artistic point of view. Numerous important works of art as well as church ornaments and vestments are found inside the church. Of note are the altarpieces, the frontals in scagliola from Carpi, and the fabrics conserved in the sacristy. The painting of St. Martin giving his cloak to the pauper can be dated to the end of the 16th century and can be identified as the work of a local painter by the characteristics typical of the mannerists school from the Emilia region.
The canvas of San Carlo Borromeo in prayer and of the Virgin with Infant Jesus in glory dates to the beginning of the 17th century and is probably from the school of Ferrara.
The canvas of the Madonna with Infant Jesus on the throne, St. Joseph, St. Peter, and St. Francis is the 18th-century work of a local painter.
The painting of the Annunciation is a fine work with stylistic features typical of the Bologna school of the late 16th century.
The Trinity with angels and the saints Francis and John the Baptist contains a frescoed insert depicting the Madonna with Infant Jesus. This 15th-century fresco is set within this large canvas which provides the glory setting and the background.
The mixture of colours, the vivid depictions of the angels and the Glory with the Trinity, and the dense chiaroscuro effect of the figures in the foreground, indicate that the painting is the work of the Venetian painter Domenico Tintoretto.
The canvas of the Saints Antonio da Padova and Francis in adoration of the Image of the Virgin has the same iconological connotations as the painting by Tintoretto. In this case, the painter, an unknown 17th century artist from the local area or from Reggio Emilia, has set the representation within a realistic depiction of a church interior with minute details of the altar ornaments, to give a trompe l’oeil effect.
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Via Rubiera, 1 - 42018 San Martino in Rio
Phone 0039 0522 698422 - Convent
cappuccinisanmartino@gmail.com
Frati cappuccini di S.Martino in Rio
From 07:30 a.m to 12:00 e from 03:00 p.m. to 07:00 p.m.
See the indication to reach San Martino in Rio
The original vault is concealed behind a recently-built double ceiling. On the left side of the nave there are three chapels with altars. The church contains important works such as 16th- and 17th-century canvases received from other closed-down monasteries, frontals in scagliola, and inlaid altars. The main altar with an carved and inlaid 18th-century tabernacle is particularly beautiful.
The canvas of St. Francis receiving the stigmata is stylistically interesting, particularly for the depiction of the landscape. The canvas matches the main altarpiece of the church.
The painting of the Crib is an early, possibly late 17th-century copy of the famous “Notte” by Correggio, once in the Basilica of San Prospero in Reggio Emilia, and now in Dresden.
The canvases of St. Sebastian were probably originally the side panels of a larger painting that was broken up, as shown by the scenes appearing on the sides and the landscape which can be imagined as continuing across the canvases.
The paintings are dated 1521 and signed by Ercole Banci, a painter from Ferrara in the height of the Renaissance period, influenced by the classicist Francesco Francia.
Estense fortress - Municipality of San Martino in Rio
Emilia Romagna Castles - San Martino in Rio
Sunday and holidays: 10.00 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. and 3.00 - 6.30 p.m. (summer time: 3.30-7.00 p.m.). Free entrance in the exhibition halls, Pinacoteca Coppelli and Henghel Gualdi Archive. Possibility of guided tours with fee.
Unguided tours: free entrance.
Guided tours (Fortress and Agriculture and Rural World Museum): Sunday and holidays with start at 10.00, 11.15 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. (summer time: 10.00, 11.15 a.m., 4.00 and 5.30 p.m.).
Euros 5.00 - full fee
Euros 3.00 - reduced fee (children aged 12-18, university students, people over 65 and groups exceeding 10 people)
Free - children under 12, disabled and their helpers
See the indication to reach San Martino in Rio or see the map above.
It has been recognized as a Quality Museum by the Emilia-Romagna Region and has been accredited by the Regional Museum System and the National Museum System since 2022.
In 2021, one year after his death, the museum was dedicated to Enzo Carretti (1931-2020), its founder.
Corso Umberto I, 22 - 42018 San Martino in Rio 0039 0522 636726 - Office
0039 0522 636740 - Museum
museo@comune.sanmartinoinrio.re.it Museo dell'Agricoltura e del Mondo Rurale
The Museum of Agriculture and the Rural World is located inside the Estense Fortress of San Martino in Rio, in the rooms on the ground floor and in the basement for an exhibition area of about 845 square metres.
Estense Fortress and Agriculture Museum
Sundays and holidays: 10.00 a.m. - 11.15 a.m. - 3.30 p.m. - 5.00 p.m. (summer time: 10.00, 11.15 a.m., 4.00 and 5.30 p.m.).
During the week: upon reservation.
€ 5.00 - full
€ 2.50 - Reduced (children aged 12 to 18, university students, people over 65 and groups over 10 people)
Free - Children up to 12 years, disabled and their helpers
Following the measures of containment and social distancing, the entrance is allowed to a maximum of 14 people per tour new rules
San Martino in Rio
By car
When coming from Reggio Emilia (15 km), take National Road SS468 travelling in the direction of Correggio. At Fazzano, take the Provincial Road (SP) and follow signs to San Martino in Rio.
From the exit Carpi of the A22 motor-way (8 km), follow the signs to San Martino in Rio.
By bus
Public transport service bus bus No. 41
The San Martino in Rio Fortress is the seat of the cultural activities of the Municipality.
A recent restoration has given value to interesting Renaissance frescoes.
The Fortress hosts one of the most important ethnographic museums in the region: dedicated to agriculture and traditional crafts, it is divided into different thematic sections (hemp derivatives, weaving, milling and dairy art).
Already belonging to the Canossa family, the fortress underwent destructions such as the one by Federico Barbarossa and various reconstructions up to its present appearance, which partly dates back to the XV century.
It passed to the Roberti from Reggio, since 1501, to a marquis branch of the Este and then, from the second half of the XVIII century, to the Rango d'Aragona.
The quadrangular structure maintains a single square corner tower intact, with Ghibelline crenellations and the swooping defensive apparatus of the machicolations.
Inside, the most representative rooms consist of the ogival St. John chapel (XV century) and some rooms (noble apartment) with painted chests, frescoes and stuccoes from the XV-XVIII centuries.
The Estense Fortress now hosts the Museum of Agriculture and the Rural World, the Coppelli Art Gallery, the Civic Library, the Historical Archive and the Open Archive for Henghel Gualdi.
Henghel Gualdi Archive is located in a prestigious hall of the Library on the noble floor of San Martino in Rio Estense Fortress.
Opening times:
Tuesday and Thursday 6.00 - 7.00 p.m.; Wednesday and Saturday 11.00 a.m. - 12.00.
Corso Umberto I, 22
42018 San Martino in Rio
Phone: 0039.0522.636719
e-mail: biblioteca@comune.sanmartinoinrio.re.it