Borgo di Stagno

The village of Stagno is one of the 12 hamlets of the municipality of Camugnano about 7 km from the main town. It is a small 15th-century village, perched around the church, once the site of a powerful castle, consisting of a large walled enclosure containing a rainwater collection cistern and a number of small buildings and narrow houses, leaning against each other, overlooking narrow alleys. Most of the roofs are still made of sandstone slabs, with porticoes, windows and doorways, forming a typical example of Apennine architecture. Its strategic position, wedged on the border between Tuscany and Emilia, made Stagno the object of fierce disputes between the Lombards, who arrived here from Pistoia starting in the 6th-7th centuries, the Pistoiese and Bolognese. Such land contentions ceased in 1522 when Stagno returned definitively under municipal rule in the province of Bologna. The church of San Michele Arcangelo, built in 1570, is located on the belvedere of Stagno, where the view flies over the panorama, captured by the azure waters of Lake Suviana, an artificial basin, yet well integrated with the surrounding landscape, adding depth and colour. A short walk from Stagno leads to the characteristic hamlet of Chiapporato, a group of houses on the slopes of Mount Calvi. Its origins can be traced back to the first century of the year 1000. Accordingly, the place-name Chiapporato is first documented in 1145 as the Abbey of S. Salvatore di Vaiano first acquired possessions here, a unique example of how architecture was once deeply influenced by the environment.