Hotel Monte Del Re  

In the parish territory of San Lorenzo di Piscerano, formerly in the Marquisate of the Malvezzi Campeggi family, at 289 metres above sea level, on a pleasant hill crowned with cypress trees, the small Monastery of the Friars Minor of Monte del Re was established in the thirteenth century and lasted for over 5 hundred years. It was certainly due to the mystical atmosphere which dwelt in it that someone called Monte del Re "The hill of Paradise", as Pope Clement IV, in a document of 1266, had already called the hill of Assisi. Unfortunately, we do not know the exact year the Monastery was founded, because the archives have disappeared, undoubtedly during the napoleonic era when monastic orders were suppressed. It was already known under this name before 1280, by Frà Salimbene of Parma, one of the first chroniclers of Italian literature, who spent one year of his monastic life there. The Monastery certainly existed at the beginning of the 1250s. Historical research leads us to think it was built immediately after the visit by Saint Francis of Assisi to Imola, around 1213. Several interesting anecdotes have grown in popular tradition around Saint Francis' visit. The wooden cross, still standing near the church at the end of the steps, was erected, according to tradition, by Saint Francis himself in 1223. The friars then are said to have built a solid masonry foundation so that such a precious relic would not be lost. Two events show that Monte del Re, however small it may have been, found itself for a few brief moments at the centre of the history of the Franciscan Order. The first was around 1630, when the Father General of the Order of the Monastery Minors stayed at Monte del Re for over 100 days, directing the order in all the Provinces of its competence from there. The second was when, both in 1479 and in 1709, the small monastery was chosen as the seat for the Chapter Acts. Monte del Re was therefore a Franciscan monastery until the suppression of the Orders decreed by Napoleon. It was then purchased by Count Sassatelli, who made it his "country residence". After passing through several hands, it was permanently occupied by the Imola Seminarians until 1969.