Porretta Terme

It was an independent municipality until 31 December 2015, when it merged with Granaglione to form the new municipality of Alto Reno Terme. Although administratively Porretta Terme is a frazione of Alto Reno Terme, the built-up area of Porretta is continuous with neighbouring settlements across the Reno valley floor. On the right bank of the Reno, Berzantina belongs administratively to the municipality of Castel di Casio, while remaining closely connected with Porretta in the local geography of the valley.

• Name — Porretta Terme • Comune — Alto Reno Terme • Native Name — Puràtta • Region — Emilia-Romagna • Province — Bologna (BO) • Elevation M — 349 • Saint — Mary Magdalene • Day — 22 July • Postal Code — 40046 • Area Code — 0534

Porretta Terme is situated at about 349 m above sea level, at the confluence of the Rio Maggiore with the Reno. The older settlement developed along the Rio Maggiore, while later expansion followed the Reno valley floor, the Porrettana road and the railway. The settlement lies in the upper Reno valley, a narrow Apennine corridor linking the Bolognese area with the Pistoia mountains and northern Tuscany. The Porrettana railway marks an important physical and administrative division in the valley floor, separating Porretta from Berzantina, which is situated on the right bank of the Reno in the municipality of Castel di Casio.

The history of Porretta is closely linked to its mineral waters. The springs were known and used in antiquity, and the historic spa area developed along the upper course of the Rio Maggiore. Roman archaeological finds discovered in the area of the Terme Alte attest to the ancient use of the site. The town was formerly known as Bagni della Porretta, a name referring directly to the baths and thermal waters. During the nineteenth century, the development of spa facilities and the opening of the Porrettana railway strengthened Porretta's role as a thermal and mountain resort. During the Italian campaign of World War II, Porretta lay near the Gothic Line front. The town housed the headquarters of the 1st Brazilian Expeditionary Division between November 1944 and the final Allied breakthrough of the Gothic Line. On 1 January 2016 the former municipalities of Porretta Terme and Granaglione were abolished and merged into the new municipality of Alto Reno Terme, established by Regional Law no. 19 of 23 November 2015.

Porretta Terme is one of the historic spa towns of the northern Apennines. Its thermal waters have been known since antiquity and gave rise to the settlement formerly called Bagni della Porretta. The springs emerge principally in the historic Terme Alte area along the Rio Maggiore and in the lower thermal area near the Reno. The system includes warmer and more mineralised saline bromine-and-iodine waters and cooler, less mineralised sulphurous waters, traditionally used for different forms of thermal treatment. Modern geochemical studies interpret the springs as meteoric waters that circulate deeply through the sedimentary formations of the Northern Apennines before rising along tectonic structures. During this circulation they acquire a predominantly Na–Cl–HCO 3 composition and other distinctive hydrochemical characteristics.

Porretta is also known for its quartz and calcite mineralizations. The University of Bologna's Luigi Bombicci Mineralogical Collection describes the local quarzo aeroidro a tramogge, or enhydro hopper quartz, as notable for the large size of its crystals and crystal aggregates. Hopper quartz crystals have a stepped morphology caused by faster growth along the crystal edges than in the centre of the crystal faces. Some crystals are enhydro, containing internal cavities with fossil hydrothermal water and methane bubbles. These mineralizations are linked to the deep hydrothermal system associated with the thermal waters of Porretta. The regional geosite inventory of Emilia-Romagna records the Porretta quartz occurrences among the geological features of the area, noting the typical hopper habit of the crystals. The private Agostini Mineralogical Collection is listed at Ca' Giannini, in the municipality of Alto Reno Terme.

The Terme Alte form the historic upper spa complex of Porretta. Inside the complex is the Grottino Chini, also known as the Sala Bibita, a small drinking hall decorated with ceramic works by Galileo Chini, one of the leading figures of Italian Art Nouveau decoration.

The first church at Porretta, originally dedicated to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, was built in the decade after 1426 by the parish priest Pellegrino di Signorino. It was initially dependent on the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Capugnano. In 1585 it became an autonomous parish and vicariate, with the title of pieve. The present church was designed by the Bolognese architects Agostino Barelli and Giuseppe Antonio Torri and built between 1690 and 1696; it was inaugurated on 22 July 1696. The bell tower acquired its present form in 1848, while part of the semi-dome collapsed as a result of wartime damage in 1944 and was rebuilt after the war. The high altar preserves a late-sixteenth-century Noli me tangere, long attributed to Denis Calvaert and now assigned to Ercole Procaccini the Elder. Other works include the Presentation of Mary at the Temple, Saint Anthony Abbot and Madonna of the Rosary and Saints by Pietro Maria Massari, known as il Porrettano, a wooden Crucifix by the Sicilian Franciscan sculptor Fra Innocenzo da Petralia Soprana, and a painting of the Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Bernardino by Alessandro Tiarini in the adjoining Oratory of San Rocco. The organ was rebuilt and enlarged by Adriano Verati in 1883–1884, partly reusing material from earlier instruments.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, commonly known as the Church of the Capuchin Friars, stands at the beginning of Via Mazzini and forms part of a former Capuchin convent. The complex originated after the Nanni brothers donated land in 1857; construction began the following year, the church was completed in 1878 and the convent in 1882. The property passed to the Capuchins in 1888, and the friars remained there until 2005, when the church and convent were entrusted to the parish of Porretta Terme. Beneath the church, in a large basement, is the mechanical Nativity scene known as the Presepe dei Frati. Begun in 2000 by Leonardo Antonelli, responsible for the scenery, and Francesco Mascagni, responsible for its electrical, mechanical and lighting systems, it occupies about 250 m2. Moving figures, sound and lighting reconstruct traditional crafts and village life. Unlike a conventional Nativity display, its sequence extends through the earthly life of Jesus and includes the Crucifixion, burial, Resurrection and Ascension.

The Sanctuary of the Madonna del Ponte is located near the Reno, along the road towards Ponte della Venturina and Pistoia. The venerated image of the Madonna del Ponte was officially recognised in 2022 as patroness of Italian basketball, following a devotion associated with the sanctuary's Sacrario del Cestista, inaugurated in 1956.

Capugnano, one of the principal villages of the former municipality of Porretta Terme, lies in the hills above the spa town. The present church of San Michele Arcangelo was consecrated on 17 June 1417 and assumed its current general configuration in the early eighteenth century. It preserves a Madonna del Latte fresco dating from around the time of the church's consecration, a polychrome terracotta Pietà attributed to Andrea della Robbia and a collaborator and dated to about 1495–1500, an early-sixteenth-century Nativity group associated with the Della Robbia milieu, fragments of a Last Judgment dated 1522, and six inlaid and painted scagliola altar frontals.

Castelluccio, another village of the former municipality, stands at about 811 m on a ridge descending from Monte Cavallo and Monte Tresca. The settlement is of medieval origin and retains vaulted passages, terraced gardens and the seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria Assunta. At the entrance to the village is Castello Manservisi, a historic residence remodelled in the nineteenth century by Alessandro Manservisi in a medieval-romantic style, with pointed arches, towers and wrought-iron details. The Manservisi family retained the property until 1912; the complex was later used as a school colony, hotel and restaurant before becoming a cultural and exhibition centre. Its interiors include the Sala degli Arazzi, with trompe-l'oeil paintings by the Bolognese artist Giacomo Lolli. A wing of the complex houses the LabOrantes Museum, whose collections document the domestic, working and religious life of the Bolognese Apennine communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The displays include tools, reconstructed domestic settings, sacred furnishings and votive tablets from the sanctuaries of the Madonna del Faggio and Madonna del Ponte.

Tresana is a small mountain settlement between Castelluccio and the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Faggio. Its houses are built of local stone and the restored village is surrounded by chestnut groves; it is also locally known for the hydrangeas cultivated among the buildings. The village contains a monumental sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), formally included in the Italian register of monumental trees. The nearby Sanctuary of the Madonna del Faggio is an isolated eighteenth-century church in a beech wood, about 3 km from Castelluccio. The sanctuary was founded in 1722 and was initially known as the Madonna del Rio Scorticato. From 1756 an annual procession carried the sacred image from the sanctuary to Castelluccio and returned it on Ascension Day, involving the communities of Castelluccio, Capugnano and Monteacuto delle Alpi. The centuries-old beech associated by local tradition with the origin of the devotion collapsed in 1970; part of the trunk is preserved inside the sanctuary, while the remains at the site were later protected by a wooden shelter.

Since 1988 Porretta has hosted the Porretta Soul Festival, an annual festival dedicated to soul music and rhythm and blues. The festival was conceived by Graziano Uliani after he attended events in Macon, Georgia, commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the death of Otis Redding. The festival's presence in the town is also reflected in the Rufus Thomas Park, Otis Redding Street, Solomon Burke Bridge and an alley named after Sam Cooke. The Porretta SOUL Museum is housed in the town's nineteenth-century former prison. Its displays include documents, memorabilia, stage costumes, photographs and publications relating to the festival and to Porretta's links with Memphis soul music.

Porretta has a significant association with independent cinema. The Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero was founded in Porretta Terme in 1960 by figures including Cesare Zavattini, Leonida Repaci, Bruno Grieco and Gian Paolo Testa. The present Festival del Cinema di Porretta Terme was founded in 2002 and presents itself as continuing that tradition.

Porretta Terme is served by Porretta Terme railway station, on the Pistoia–Bologna railway, commonly known as the Porrettana. The line, inaugurated in 1864, was the first railway connection across the Apennines between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna and takes its name from Porretta. The station is managed by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana and has four passenger tracks. The town is also crossed by the Strada statale 64 Porrettana, the historic road route linking Bologna with Pistoia through the Reno valley.

Until 31 December 2015 Porretta Terme was a separate municipality in the Province, later Metropolitan City, of Bologna. It included the hamlets of Capugnano, Castelluccio and Corvella and covered about 33.9 km2. The municipality was abolished on 1 January 2016, when Porretta Terme and Granaglione were merged into the new municipality of Alto Reno Terme.