Manoni’s Wisteria

Opposite the former Palace of the Province, stands the century-old wisteria, which survived the heavy bombing that destroyed the surrounding building in 1944. It is located on the premises of one of the city’s historic workshops.

Wisteria was planted in 1915 by Mr. Stefano Manoni, owner of the adjacent shop and member of a well-known family of the town, thanks to the cultural, social and solidarity commitment of Giannina Manoni.

It was during the Second World War that the wisteria plant acquired the extraordinary symbolic value that the people of Forlì still recognize today.

On the morning of August 25, 1944, during the first stages of the Gothic Line attack, a South African Air Force formation attacked the city. Although the target was the railway structures and tracks, much of the Allied fire missed its target and fell on Piazza Saffi and the surrounding area, causing enormous destruction, more than a hundred casualties, a large number of wounded and serious damage to Aurelio Saffi’s statue, which was dismantled for safety reasons. An IED hit the row of buildings along this stretch of Via delle Torri, leaving a pile of rubble.

Among the ruins, the only evidence of life was the wisteria, which miraculously remained intact. The Manoni family kept it alive and managed to save it. In the deep sadness of those days, the wisteria became, in its own way, a symbol of rebirth and perseverance which, in the years that followed, the citizens of Forlì put into completing the reconstruction of the town. In the year of its centenary, the Department of Green Areas and Urban Furnishings, in agreement with the property, has taken steps to replace the worn-out protective structure with a new one, larger and better suited to the needs of a secular plant, protected by the City Council as part of the historical heritage of the city.