San Lazzaro di Savena

Infobox CityIT
img_coa = San Lazzaro di Savena stemma.png official_name = Comune di San Lazzaro di Savena
region = Emilia-Romagna
province = Bologna (BO)
elevation_m = 62
area_total_km2 = 44
population_as_of = 2006
population_total = 30200
population_density_km2 = 686
timezone = CET, UTC+1
coordinates = coord|44|28|15|N|11|24|30|E|region:IT_type:city(30200)
frazioni = Borgatella, Castel de Britti, Cicogna, Colunga, Croara, Idice, Ponticella
telephone = 051
postalcode = 40068
gentilic =
saint = St. Lazarus
day = December 17
mayor = Marco Macciantelli (since June, 2004
website = [http://www.comune.sanlazzaro.bo.it/ www.comune.sanlazzaro.bo.it]

San Lazzaro di Savena is an Italian comune (municipality) of some 30,000 inhabitants in the province of Bologna, Emilia-Romagna.

Location

The town is located on the Via Emilia, a major thoroughfare for town traffic, 6 km from the city centre of Bologna towards the southeast.

The territory of the municipality extends towards the plain and at the foot of the first hills around Bologna. Some watercourses such as the Zena (creek), the Idice and the Savena, after which the town was named, flow through the town.

Within the territory of the municipality we can find the Spipola Cave with its doline and the chalky rock emergences of the Farneto and the Croara, that give shape to an extremely interesting karst compound (there are about 50 caves and natural hollows crossed by a 6 km long hypogeous stream), protected by the Parco dei Gessi Bolognesi e Calanchi dell'Abbadessa (Natural park of Bologna's chalky rocks and the Abbess's gully).

History

Inhabited since ancient times, within the territory of the municipality many findings from the Stone Age (stone instruments) and the Bronze Age have been found and, along with nearby Castenaso it witnessed a flourishing Villanovian civilization.

An existing document shows that ever since 1214 a quarantine station (in Italian "lazzaretto", from which the other part of the name originated) was located, as usual, outside the town so that ill people could be isolated and the propagation of a disease could be limited.

The town was autonomous municipality in the Napoleonic Era (1810). It was afterwards readmitted to Bologna and gained back autonomy with the help of Carlo Berti Pichat after 1827.

Nowadays, after the building expansion of the 1970s, San Lazzaro is one of the most populated towns in the province of Bologna and is the main seat of a good number of factories.

Main sights

In San Lazzaro the museum of prehistory "Luigi Donini" gathering many remarkable findings of ancient times has been recently opened.

ports

The town's football team is A.C. Boca San Lazzaro, currently playing amateur football in Serie D after being relegated from Serie C2 after the 2006-07 season.

External links

* [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bologna,+Italy&ll=44.465575,11.408572&spn=0.023157,0.035306&t=k&hl=en Google
]
* [http://www.parks.it/parco.gessi.bolognesi/ Parco dei Gessi Bolognesi e Calanchi dell'Abbadessa]