Castel San Giovanni is a town and comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

in the province of Piacenza

Province of Piacenza

The Province of Piacenza is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Piacenza.The province has 273,689 inhabitants . Its total area is 2,589 km². There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Piacenza...

, Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna

Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

History

The origins of the town are probably related to an ancient pieve

Pieve

In the Middle Ages, a pieve was a rural church with a baptistery, upon which other churches without baptisteries depended.The Italian word pieve is descended from Latin plebs which, after the expansion of Christianity in Italy, was applied to the community of baptized people...

called Olubra and a fortress called Castellus Milonus, which preceded the construction of a new castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 by Alberto Scoto in 1290 (now also disappeared).

After a period under the Dal Verme family of lords-condottieri, it became part of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1485.

Main sights

• The Collegiata (14th century), with Baroque portals and a 1496 crucifix by Giacomo del Maino and his son Giovanni Angelo
  Giovanni Angelo Del Maino
  Giovanni Angelo Del Maino was an Italian sculptor in wood....
  
  .
• Church of San Giovanni Battista (12th century)
• Villa Braghieri-Albesani (18th century), with several frescoed rooms.

Twinnings

Slunj

Slunj

Slunj is a town in the mountainous part of Central Croatia, located along the important North-South route to the Adriatic Sea between Karlovac and Plitvice Lakes National Park, on the meeting of the rivers Korana and Slunjčica...

, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...