Canossa

Canossa sits on the Apennine slope thirty kilometers south of Parma and twenty-five southwest of Reggio Emilia at the seat in Ciano d'Enza. The commune is named for the ruined fortress on a white limestone outcrop eight kilometers east, built before 950 by Adalbert Atto of Lucca and held by Matilde di Canossa until her death in 1115. The fortress was destroyed by Reggio Emilia in 1255.

The commune was itself called Ciano d'Enza until 1992, when it took the older name back, so the seat in the valley and the ruin on the hill now share one name across two places. Vineyards on the surrounding slopes produce Lambrusco and the Spergola white grape, and the path between Ciano and the castle ruin remains the Sentiero Matilde, the same climb that once carried Henry IV to the gate where Gregory VII made him wait. A commune this small holds an outsized memory: a valley seat, a demolished hilltop stronghold, and a name discarded and then reclaimed, all turning on three days that happened at the top of the path.