Oliveto

Oliveto is located a short distance from Monteveglio, in a panoramic position on a hill.

In the year 776 the town of Oliveto, then called Casale Sociorum, was donated by the Lombard dukes to the Nonantola abbey which included it in its fiefdom until, in 1131, the Olivetans became independent constituting a free municipality (which survived for about a century, then passed freely to the municipality of Bologna). In 1803 Napoleon's French, who had invaded the region, suppressed the municipality of Oliveto, passing the territory under the municipality of Monteveglio. From the tenth century the village took the name with which we still know it today, derived from the name of the hill (Monte Oliveto) inspired by the characteristic vegetation of the place, olive trees.

Some ancient monuments remain of the historic olive grove. Among which, for example, a large medieval building called the Casa Grande dello Jewo (built in 1410 by Salomon Mathasia, was the seat of the Jewish community as well as the first bank in the whole area) and the Bronzina (which in 1527 was the hotel of the Great of Spain and subsequently it was also a lazaretto and then a bronze foundry around 1775).

The "Saracca Festival" is held annually in the village in March. Spanish-inspired festival, inherited at the time of their passage in 1527. The object of this festival is the funeral of the Saracca "or Sardina which is buried at the foot of a wooden cross.