Magione

This is the birth-place of Fra' Giovanni di Pian di Carpine, who owes his name to the mighty carpini betuli (horn-beams) which once covered the plain at the foot of Magione. In 1225 the friar was sent by Pope Innocent IV to the Orient, to spread the order of the minorites. He was to return twenty--three years later, and commit to posterity his book "Historia Mongolorum" which described the Mongolian civilisation for the first time. It was a text used as a guide by many missionaries and merchants, among whom Marco Polo. The town (299 m a.s.l.) grew around the hospice founded by Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, transformed into a castle in 1300 and enlarged in 1420 by the Bolognese, Fieravante Fieravanti. The municipality of Magione also includes the picturesque hamlets of S. Feliciano, Agello, Monte del Lago and Monte Colognola, whose church houses an interesting "Annunciation"...