- Jun 30, 2022
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Grazie mille, Devil‘s Elbow!
Map and profile
Start
The name Modena is most commonly uttered in sentences that have to do with sports cars, but the city has over two millennia of history before that. Dating back to at least the third century BC, it became the largest city in Emilia in Roman times, peaking at or close to 20000 inhabitants. In 43 BC, in the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, it was the site of the second of back-to-back battles between Mark Antony and the combined armies of the Senate and Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus. The battle was won by the latter, but it would be a pyrrhic victory for the Senate: with each battle having claimed the life of one of the two consuls, Octavian was left as the sole leader of the army, in a position of great power for the first time. Caesar’s appointed heir used this opportunity to march on Rome, secure the consulship for himself, and allied (for the time being) with Mark Antony in what is known to history as the Second Triumvirate. This was the first time the future Augustus made a power play in his own right, and thus the Battle of Mutina had great consequences for the Roman world.
Situated in the Po Valley without much protection from rivers, Modena was highly vulnerable once the Roman Empire started to decline. It suffered greatly in the final centuries of the Empire and was almost completely abandoned either during or shortly after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. However, it remained the seat of a bishopric and it was thanks to the efforts of the bishops that the city was resettled in the 8th century. Modena started to prosper again from that point onward, although its progress slowed after its independence was ended by the House of Este, the Dukes of Ferrara, in the 13th century. While the new arrangement was more of a personal union (indeed, Modena was made the seat of its own Duchy in 1452), the Estes prioritised Ferrara until they lost it to the Papal States in 1598. From that point onward, Modena was their capital, making Modena a political as well as an economic centre. Its independence would almost be ended on three separate occasions, especially during the French Revolution, but the daughter and only child of the deposed duke managed to reclaim the throne by marrying into the Habsburg dynasty. Thus, the duchy survived until Italian reunification.
Modena then trundled along for the best part of a century, never impoverished but also not particularly remarkable, until the postwar era. This is where we return to sports cars, the biggest driver (pun intended) for an economic boom remarkable even for the postwar era: Enzo Ferrari was born in the city and founded the eponymous company here, and it, Lamborghini, Maserati and Pagani are all located in or near Modena today. There is an irony to be found in cars for the superrich powering the economy of a city that had an uninterrupted string of communist mayors from 1946 until 1992. However, Modena also produces other products everyone is familiar with: as one of the main cities in the western half of Emilia, to which both are legally constrained, it is a key production centre of both Parmigiano Reggiano (to us barbaric non-Italians, parmesan cheese) and balsamic vinegar. It is also the home of Panini, synonymous with football trading cards for generations of children. All this combined to make Modena one of the richest cities in the country. Aside from Ferrari, the most notable person born in the municipality is Luciano Pavarotti, one of the all-time great tenors. As for sports, it is of course mainly linked to motor racing. The Giro last visited in 2021 for a stage start, the most recent winner here is Arnaud Démare two years prior.
Piazza Grande with cathedral and belltower. Together, they are UNESCO-inscribed (picture by Marcoc54 at Wikimedia Commons)
Route
The shortest way from Modena to Viadana would make for a short stage even by junior women’s standards, so there’s quite a bit of padding here. On the plus side, that padding consists mostly of the Apennines, on the minus side, they’re not only taking an easy route, but also passing through the towns that the second alternative for the previous stage I outlined would have gone through. After the obligatory stopoff at the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello and a visit to Sassuolo, whose football team have just been crowned Serie B champions at the time of writing, it’s time for what little we have in the way of hills. The first of these hills, the KOM at Baiso, is also the hardest, and corresponds to the first 7.8 kilometres of the profile below.
The riders then come very close to yesterday’s route, with the intermediate sprint in Felina being just one town over from the finish in Castelnovo ne’ Monti. That marks the point where the route turns north to head back towards the Po valley. The long rolling section that has lasted since the KOM culminates at its highest point atop La Stella, from where a multi-stepped, at times technical descent takes the riders back to valley level. Less than a kilometre away from the route here is Canossa Castle, one of the most important in Italy from the 10th until the early 12th century. In 1077, it was the site of a symbolic, but major defeat for Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy, a half century of the Pope and the Emperor vying for control over (especially) the right to appoint bishops. After the Pope had excommunicated him over the controversy, Henry travelled to Canossa to seek forgiveness, supposedly waiting at the gate for three days, barefoot and in the snow. This had the effect of him being restored to the church, but the symbolic cost should be obvious. In any case, the dispute would last until 1122 whilst the idiom ‘going to Canossa’ has since entered the dictionary in many European countries.
Moving back to the stage at hand, the valley section is very short, as the route takes in an additional KOM at Borsea. This corresponds to the first 4.0 kilometres of the profile below.
With that, all the difficulties are over, and after the descent the riders get to enjoy 70 pancake-flat kilometres to the line. In this section, we have the intermediate sprint in Sant’Ilario d’Enza and the bonification sprint in Brescello before crossing the Po into Viadana.
Finish
Final circuit number three. The finish is ridiculous: absolutely nothing to string out the peloton until 450 metres to go, where we have a 120-degree turn onto the final straight. If either the riders or the CPA were interested in other things than grandstanding, we would have heard complaints about this one ages ago, and rightly so. However, that sadly isn’t how cycling works and so we are likely to see a very predictable crash here. Let’s hope it isn’t a mass pile-up.
Located on the northern bank of the Po, Viadana is the southernmost town in Lombardy. I cannot find any information on when exactly it was founded, but the Marquisate of Viadana was certainly established in the 12th century. Thus, the town and its surroundings remained autonomous until annexation by the Duchy of Mantova in the early 15th century. Like most of the lower areas in the Po valley, Viadana was located in a swampy area prone to flooding, hence why most cities in northern Italy are further away from the main rivers and why Viadana never grew to be all that much in spite of a location important both economically (river trade) and militarily (the Po often formed the border in pre-unification Northern Italy). However, it did regain some of its political status, when a now partially-autonomous marquisate was (re)established in the 16th century.
The Duchy of Mantova was eventually disestablished and partitioned in the early 18th century, having joined the French bloc in the War of the Spanish Succession, only to find the opposing Grand Alliance victorious in the Italian theatre of the war. Viadana itself was part of the territory annexed by the Austrian Empire, who disestablished the marquisate in 1771. Over the centuries, flood protection and irrigation in the Po improved, spurring agricultural development; this, combined with minor industrial development, forms the basis of Viadana’s economy. The one area in which it is actually noteworthy is rugby: the local team has been in the top flight since 1999, winning one national title and becoming the first Italian team to play in a European final in 2004. As for cycling, it is a blank slate.
(picture by (spat) on Flickr)
What to expect?
A full bunch sprint is inevitable.
Stage 12: Modena – Viadana
After my criticism last stage, let’s have some praise: we are past halfway through the race, this is likely only the third opportunity for most sprinters, and the previous two have either had echelon potential or a fair bit of elevation gain. This stage isn’t flat either, but certainly the safest sprint opportunity until Rome.Map and profile
Start
The name Modena is most commonly uttered in sentences that have to do with sports cars, but the city has over two millennia of history before that. Dating back to at least the third century BC, it became the largest city in Emilia in Roman times, peaking at or close to 20000 inhabitants. In 43 BC, in the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, it was the site of the second of back-to-back battles between Mark Antony and the combined armies of the Senate and Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus. The battle was won by the latter, but it would be a pyrrhic victory for the Senate: with each battle having claimed the life of one of the two consuls, Octavian was left as the sole leader of the army, in a position of great power for the first time. Caesar’s appointed heir used this opportunity to march on Rome, secure the consulship for himself, and allied (for the time being) with Mark Antony in what is known to history as the Second Triumvirate. This was the first time the future Augustus made a power play in his own right, and thus the Battle of Mutina had great consequences for the Roman world.
Situated in the Po Valley without much protection from rivers, Modena was highly vulnerable once the Roman Empire started to decline. It suffered greatly in the final centuries of the Empire and was almost completely abandoned either during or shortly after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. However, it remained the seat of a bishopric and it was thanks to the efforts of the bishops that the city was resettled in the 8th century. Modena started to prosper again from that point onward, although its progress slowed after its independence was ended by the House of Este, the Dukes of Ferrara, in the 13th century. While the new arrangement was more of a personal union (indeed, Modena was made the seat of its own Duchy in 1452), the Estes prioritised Ferrara until they lost it to the Papal States in 1598. From that point onward, Modena was their capital, making Modena a political as well as an economic centre. Its independence would almost be ended on three separate occasions, especially during the French Revolution, but the daughter and only child of the deposed duke managed to reclaim the throne by marrying into the Habsburg dynasty. Thus, the duchy survived until Italian reunification.
Modena then trundled along for the best part of a century, never impoverished but also not particularly remarkable, until the postwar era. This is where we return to sports cars, the biggest driver (pun intended) for an economic boom remarkable even for the postwar era: Enzo Ferrari was born in the city and founded the eponymous company here, and it, Lamborghini, Maserati and Pagani are all located in or near Modena today. There is an irony to be found in cars for the superrich powering the economy of a city that had an uninterrupted string of communist mayors from 1946 until 1992. However, Modena also produces other products everyone is familiar with: as one of the main cities in the western half of Emilia, to which both are legally constrained, it is a key production centre of both Parmigiano Reggiano (to us barbaric non-Italians, parmesan cheese) and balsamic vinegar. It is also the home of Panini, synonymous with football trading cards for generations of children. All this combined to make Modena one of the richest cities in the country. Aside from Ferrari, the most notable person born in the municipality is Luciano Pavarotti, one of the all-time great tenors. As for sports, it is of course mainly linked to motor racing. The Giro last visited in 2021 for a stage start, the most recent winner here is Arnaud Démare two years prior.
Piazza Grande with cathedral and belltower. Together, they are UNESCO-inscribed (picture by Marcoc54 at Wikimedia Commons)
Route
The shortest way from Modena to Viadana would make for a short stage even by junior women’s standards, so there’s quite a bit of padding here. On the plus side, that padding consists mostly of the Apennines, on the minus side, they’re not only taking an easy route, but also passing through the towns that the second alternative for the previous stage I outlined would have gone through. After the obligatory stopoff at the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello and a visit to Sassuolo, whose football team have just been crowned Serie B champions at the time of writing, it’s time for what little we have in the way of hills. The first of these hills, the KOM at Baiso, is also the hardest, and corresponds to the first 7.8 kilometres of the profile below.
The riders then come very close to yesterday’s route, with the intermediate sprint in Felina being just one town over from the finish in Castelnovo ne’ Monti. That marks the point where the route turns north to head back towards the Po valley. The long rolling section that has lasted since the KOM culminates at its highest point atop La Stella, from where a multi-stepped, at times technical descent takes the riders back to valley level. Less than a kilometre away from the route here is Canossa Castle, one of the most important in Italy from the 10th until the early 12th century. In 1077, it was the site of a symbolic, but major defeat for Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy, a half century of the Pope and the Emperor vying for control over (especially) the right to appoint bishops. After the Pope had excommunicated him over the controversy, Henry travelled to Canossa to seek forgiveness, supposedly waiting at the gate for three days, barefoot and in the snow. This had the effect of him being restored to the church, but the symbolic cost should be obvious. In any case, the dispute would last until 1122 whilst the idiom ‘going to Canossa’ has since entered the dictionary in many European countries.
Moving back to the stage at hand, the valley section is very short, as the route takes in an additional KOM at Borsea. This corresponds to the first 4.0 kilometres of the profile below.
With that, all the difficulties are over, and after the descent the riders get to enjoy 70 pancake-flat kilometres to the line. In this section, we have the intermediate sprint in Sant’Ilario d’Enza and the bonification sprint in Brescello before crossing the Po into Viadana.
Finish
Final circuit number three. The finish is ridiculous: absolutely nothing to string out the peloton until 450 metres to go, where we have a 120-degree turn onto the final straight. If either the riders or the CPA were interested in other things than grandstanding, we would have heard complaints about this one ages ago, and rightly so. However, that sadly isn’t how cycling works and so we are likely to see a very predictable crash here. Let’s hope it isn’t a mass pile-up.
Located on the northern bank of the Po, Viadana is the southernmost town in Lombardy. I cannot find any information on when exactly it was founded, but the Marquisate of Viadana was certainly established in the 12th century. Thus, the town and its surroundings remained autonomous until annexation by the Duchy of Mantova in the early 15th century. Like most of the lower areas in the Po valley, Viadana was located in a swampy area prone to flooding, hence why most cities in northern Italy are further away from the main rivers and why Viadana never grew to be all that much in spite of a location important both economically (river trade) and militarily (the Po often formed the border in pre-unification Northern Italy). However, it did regain some of its political status, when a now partially-autonomous marquisate was (re)established in the 16th century.
The Duchy of Mantova was eventually disestablished and partitioned in the early 18th century, having joined the French bloc in the War of the Spanish Succession, only to find the opposing Grand Alliance victorious in the Italian theatre of the war. Viadana itself was part of the territory annexed by the Austrian Empire, who disestablished the marquisate in 1771. Over the centuries, flood protection and irrigation in the Po improved, spurring agricultural development; this, combined with minor industrial development, forms the basis of Viadana’s economy. The one area in which it is actually noteworthy is rugby: the local team has been in the top flight since 1999, winning one national title and becoming the first Italian team to play in a European final in 2004. As for cycling, it is a blank slate.
(picture by (spat) on Flickr)
What to expect?
A full bunch sprint is inevitable.
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