Forlì: rationalist mosaics in the heart of Romagna

Birthplace of Aurelio Saffi, Forlì preserves one of Italy's best-preserved complexes of rationalist architecture, built in the fascist era.

The center, with its rationalist architecture, can be comfortably visited on foot.

The Forlì Post Office Building, a rationalist masterpiece of the Nineteen Thirties, remains one of the best-preserved examples of Fascist architecture in Italy.

A few steps away, Aurelio Saffi Square, with the Basilica of San Mercuriale and its own Romanesque bell tower, remains the medieval historic heart of the city, enlivened by markets and temporary exhibitions.

Continuing, you visit the San Domenico Museums, which periodically host large-scale international art exhibitions in a former medieval convent.

Toward evening, the district around the main square animates traditional Romagnol cuisine restaurants.

Forlì was chosen as an experimental laboratory for the Fascist regime in the 1930s, receiving a rationalist urban redevelopment plan that today makes the city a case study for twentieth-century architecture historians throughout Europe and beyond.

The Abbey of San Mercuriale, with its bell tower standing over seventy-five meters tall, remains among the tallest Romanesque towers of Emilia-Romagna, visible from much of the surrounding plain and a historical symbol of the city since the Middle Ages.