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= Perticara =

Perticara (Pertichèra) is a frazione of the comune of Novafeltria in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy.

Part of the historical region of Montefeltro, Perticara sits at 650 m above mean sea level, overshadowed by a dramatic physical landscape that is popular among hikers and bikers. The town is best known for the Perticara sulphur mine, which operated between 1741 and 1964. It was the largest sulphur mine in Europe by surface extension, with an area of approximately 500 ha and 100 km of galleries. Opened in 1970, the Historic Mining Museum (Museo Storico Minerario) retells Perticara's mining history.

As of 2023, Perticara is estimated to number 800 residents, of which 130 live in Borgo di Miniera, a residential village associated with the mine.

History
The earliest archaeological remains in Perticara were discovered during Monte Aquilone's reforestation in 1960, dating to the Neolithic period. A chestnut grove uncovered flint, ceramic fragments, brooches, and Roman coins.

In the early medieval era, the area was a place of refuge in the extremities of Romagna and the Pentapolis. One of the earliest churches in the area, the monestary of S. Martini in Saltu, was founded in Perticara, and later elevated to a parish church.

Perticara is first recorded as Montefalco around the 11th century. Its name derives from pertica (lit. 'perch'), a description of its mountain. Perticara is included in a 1228 list of castles belonging to the Counts of Carpegna and Montefeltro.

Mining towns in the region were "real industrial islands immersed in a sea of rurality". The town was a flashpoint of social tensions in the late 19th century, accentuated by its economic importance which, according to local historian Lorenzo Valenti, rendered Perticara and Sant'Agata Feltria places where "justice [became] political, ideological, class-based", with crimes uniquely violent compared to surrounding farming villages. The local legend of the infant murderer dates to this period. In 1888, five murderers from Perticara were sentenced in a highly-publicised trial at the Assize Court of Urbino.

In the 1816 reorganisation of the Papal States, Perticara came under the Delegation of Urbino and Pesaro. Perticara remained in the province of Pesaro and Urbino after the Marche joined the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. On 24 March 1907, Perticara joined the comune of Mercantino Marecchia, which was created from villages detached from Talamello. In 1941, the town was renamed as Novafeltria. On 17 and 18 December 2006, voters in Novafeltria voted to join the province of Rimini, in Emilia-Romagna; Perticara was thus transferred to the province of Rimini on 15 August 2009.

Geography
The Fanante stream flows near Perticara, with mining operations on either side of the stream, marking Novafeltria's boundary with Sant'Agata Feltria. The river flows from Perticara to the Adriatic Sea in Bellaria–Igea Marina, passing through Santarcangelo di Romagna and San Vito. Riminese historians have claimed the Uso as the Rubicon crossed by Julius Caesar in 49 BC.

The town, which is located at 650 m above mean sea level, is overshadowed by two forested mountains: Monte Aquilone and. Monte Aquilone reaches an altitude of 883 m above mean sea level. It is covered in a thick vegetation of pine and chestnut trees, with some maple trees. From their summits, the mountains offer wide views over the Valmarecchia, Romagna, the riviera romagnola, and San Marino.

Perticara's dramatic physical terrain leaves the town vulnerable to landslides and heavy snowfall. In October 2021, a €500,000 regional intervention sought to secure the town with rockfall barriers and the removal of unsafe boulders.

Main sights
Inaugurated in January 1970, the Historic Mining Museum (Museo Storico Minerario) retells Perticara's mining history. Since 22 June 2002, it has been located at the former workshop in Certino, in 3000 m2 of exhibition space. The complex includes the Vittoria well, former power plant, compressor room, and lamp room. The museum purchased archives and antiques relating to the mines that had been dispersed by the various companies that administered it. As well as workshops, the museum hosts an annual exhibition of minerals, fossils, mining antiques. In October 2005, an illustrative tunnel route was opened in the museum.

The church of Santa Barbara in Miniera was built in 1950. Previously, miners worshiped at an oratory in Cà de Masi, dating from 1775. Some of the caves around Perticara are dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of the Miners.

The foundation stone of the current San Martino in Perticara was laid in August 1834, but, missing a roof, it was not completed until 17 April 1865. Its baptisery was completed in 1873, and the church was renovated in 2000. The church's late 14th-century crucifix in the apse is from Lombardy.

Perticara is crossed by St Vicinius' Way (Cammino di San Vicinio), a trail dedicated to Vicinius of Sarsina. Monte Aquilone is popular among hikers and mountain bikers. On Monte Aquilone's north side is the Devil's Stone (Sasso del Diavolo); according to some variants of the legend, it was the last stone required to complete Rimini's Ponte di Tiberio. The devil agreed to build the bridge in return for the first soul to cross it, but the authorities (either Jupiter or Tiberius) cheated the devil by sending a dog across the bridge first. In anger, the devil refused to move the last stone from Perticara. The bridge is made of white limestone from Aurisina, known as Istrian stone, and cannot come from local quarries. The north side of Monte Aquilone also includes the Park of Minimal Places (Parco dei Luoghi Minimi), designed by Tonino Guerra, which features exotic animal sculptures. Monte Perticara includes an adventure park.

Culture and sports
Every September, Perticara hosts a sagra dedicated to polenta. The event originates from a visit to Monterchi in the late 20th century. As part of the event, several thousand portions of polenta are consumed.

In 1928, Valsecchi, the mine's director, inaugurated a football pitch, from which was created the Perticara Miners' Football Association. At its height in the 1947–48 season, the football team reached Serie C, the third-highest division in the Italian football league system.

Perticara has a Miners' Musical Band (Banda Musicale Minatori); the band has its roots in a 19th-century philarmonic society and an 1860 band, which merged in 1929. In 1957, it won first prize in a regional musical competition. A music hall was founded in Perticara in the 1960s.

Notable people

 * (1836–72), nicknamed Martignòn, patriot and legendary infant murderer, was born in Perticara, where he was chief overseer of the sulphur mines.
 * Amintore Galli (1845–1919), music publisher, academic, and composer, has his birthplace disputed between Perticara and Talamello:  Galli's birth deed records that he was baptised in Talamello – Perticara's church did not have a baptismal font – but his parents are recorded as living in Perticara. Galli's parents were Antonio Galli and Livia Signorini; his father was an architect employed at the sulphur mine.  While some sources say that he was contracted by the mine's new management to reactivate production following the failure of the previous management company,  the mine did not change ownership until ten years after Galli's birth.

In popular culture
E'Dè de Giudizi Universêl, a Romagnol poem by, is dedicated to the miners of Perticara and Romagna, imploring the trumpets on the Day of Judgment to allow "those poor labourers ... who have worked all their lives ... at least to sleep, Lord!". In Cantèda Quàtar of Tonino Guerra's Il Miele (2005), a mother tells her forty-year-old son each morning the legend of some sheep who died after they stopped eating and drinking. Around them, "there are white stones that stuck to the field when the mountain under Perticara burst and everything rained from the sky", which "sometimes move along the grass and go back on themselves as if they were dead sheep".

Sulphur deposit
Perticara sits on the ridge between the rivers Marecchia and Savio. Its sulphur (seifni) deposit is made of Messinian evaporites, dating to 7 or 8 million years ago. With the closure of the Strait of Gibraltar and the evaporation of marine waters in the newly-formed Mediterranean Sea, the concentration of salt increased. Subsequent precepitation formed gypsum and sulphur deposits. Unlike Sicilian sulphur deposits, the sulphur deposits in Romagna and the Marche do not include potassium salts, and originated solely from biological-sedimentary processes. The deposit contains substantial bitumen.

Perticara's sulphur deposit measures 5 km2. It is on a depressed east-west anticline, with a 19&deg; slope in a north-south direction. The total formation is between 100 m and 120 m in thickness, with three faults of thirteen chalky layers, of which the last five are partially mineralised. The lowest layer of the deposit is almost 2 m of siliceous limestone, followed by a substratum of gypsym or limestone, an intermediate layer of marl, and finally the master layer, varying in thickness from 14 m to 22 m, with sulphur percentages between 38% and 40%. After the friable roof marls are eleven layers of gypsum, whose upper layers were mineralised; the uppermost layer was up to 2 m thick and had a sulphur content of 24%.

Weighing 5 kg, the largest sulphur crystal in the world was extracted at Perticara. In 1936, Elvino Mezzena, the mine's director, donated it to the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano.

Antiquity and medieval era
The border regions of Montefeltro, Romagna, and San Marino have been known for centuries for its mineral deposits. It is popularly believed that sulphur extraction in the area dates to the ancient Romans, while a 1490 document records that the Holy See conceded mines in Perticara to the House of Malatesta, with 93 mills in operation around Talamello. According to Antonio Veggiani, a local historian and geographer, the names of some settlements first recorded in the medieval ages, such as San Pietro in Sulferino (now Borello, a frazione of Cesena) and San Lorenzo in Solfanello (near Urbino), suggest primitive mining activities.

Local historian Marco Battistelli contends that mining in Perticara began no earlier than the 18th century. In neighbouring Sant'Agata Feltria, sulphur extraction is first dated to January 1542; in 1563, Aurelio Fregoso, its lord, commissioned a search for an abandoned ancient sulphur mine. A 1675 register of mines in Romagna records a mine in Maiano, a village of Sant'Agata neighbouring Perticara, but no mine in Perticara.

By the start of the eighteenth century, the mine in Maiano was worked up to the left bank of the Fanante stream, which demarcated the border with Perticara, but no documentation exists of a mine on the Fanante's right bank.

Early beginnings and the Masi family (1735–1816)
In the 18th century, sulphur production became of increasing importance with the growth of gunpowder and the agricultural and pharamceutical uses of sulphuric acid. In Europe, only the Italian penninsula, Spain, and Russia had considerable sulphur deposits.

Mining research along the Fanante can be dated with certainty to 1735. A notorial deed, dated 16 November 1741, states that Giovanni Balducci of Monte Sasso could excavate sulphurous stone from the underground assets of Domenico Manzi, located on the Ripe del Fanante (lit. 'bank of the Fanante') in the territory of Perticara. On 23 September 1755, the first company was formed for the extraction of sulphur in Perticara. Owned by the Masi family and the Fabbrani family from Mercato Saraceno, the company extracted sulphur from a locality known as Cà de Masi. An act from 23 February 1769 records the representatives of Paolo Borghese Aldobrandini, Perticara's new feudal lord, demanding that Marco Masi, Perticara's councillor, pay him a fixed levy for the right to excavate sulphur.

By 1788, Perticara's caves numbered six. Battistelli estimates that the mine employed 60 workers, excavating 711.9 tonnes of raw sulphur annually. The sulphur would be purchased mostly by Romagnols and transported to refineries in Rimini, Cesena, and Cesenatico. From there, it would be transported to arsenals in Lombardy and Trieste, or exported to the Levant, Ottoman Empire, Greece, England, or the Netherlands through local ports, principally Ancona. Only a small part remained in the Papal States, transported by mules across the Appennines.

Tempered by policies of the Papal States that constrained industrial growth, towards the close of the 18th century, sulphur refineries in Romagna and the Marche lost their monopoly on markets in the Levant to Dutch refineries. With the advent of the the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch refineries closed, leaving many mines in the region to be abandoned. The mines in Perticara appear to have eschewed this fate: in 1797, responding to a request for arms from Rimini's municipal government, the community council said that its citizens had no arms, while workers "brought theirs with them going to work in Perticara's mine". Sulphur was stored across the region, waiting for prices to increase.

In the early 19th century, regional mining fortunes improved with an increase in demand for sulphur caused by the Napoleonic Wars, while competing mines in Sicily were under naval blockade. A royal decree on 9 August 1808 intended to relaunch mining in the region.

An additional cave was opened in Perticara by 1812 for a total of seven mining sites, mostly adjacent to each other: Ripe del Fanante, Cà de Masi, Cossura, Maletti, Montecchio, Vichi, and Gorga. The mines of the Masi family were the most important, with two wells reaching up to 188 m; the Masi family's request for the right to mine all the sulphur in Perticara was rejected by the prefecture of Forlì in 1811. During this period, the mines were active twenty-four hours per day.

Cisterni era (1816–1841)
Facing increasing competition from Sicilian sulphur with the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Masi family sought to sell their mine. On 27 September 1816, it was bought by the Riminese count Giovanni Cisterni for 1,000 Roman scudi. Cisterni had already obtained rights to a Masi well in 1810. By 1819, Cisterni had bought all of Perticara's mines, thereafter considered one singular mine, as well as other local mines, with the view that sulphur should be sent to Rimini's port for exportation. In the same year, he liquidated his partner, Giuseppe Bufalini of Mercato Saraceno, to become the mine's sole owner. Cisterni reduced the cost of sulphur extraction in Perticara, so that it remained competitive in quality and cost as Sicilian mines resumed production. Among Cisterni's innovations, the hand-operated winch for lifting sulphur to the surface was replaced with a machine powered by two horses, hydaulic pumps were introduced for water extraction, and an acetylene gasometer lit the operational centres, canteen, and the Alessandro well. The mine numbered approximately 90 underground workers and 110 surface workers, with 40 animals including donkeys and mules. The daily wage was 25 baiocchi for a 10-hour shift, 200 days a year. In 1822, Cisterni built a refinery in Rimini, which was considered one of the most technologically advanced in Italy.

In 1830, Cisterni sunk the Alessandro well, which became the centre of mining operations until 1917. Cisterni also sunk an additional well in Marazzana, the collective name for operations on the Fanante's left bank, for a total of seven wells on the right bank and nine on the left bank. In early February 1831, the Papal States forcibly suspended production in the mine to stop the spread of the revolutionary Carbonari. Cisterni's 1837 report to the papal legate of the province of Forlì states that the mine and refinery collectively employed 586 men, with 129 stoneworkers and many other workers in related industries.

Regional mining fortunes began to overturn from 1835, with 1837 exports from Rimini's refinery falling to a third of those of 1834. In 1838, Cisterni sold his mines in the region to a group of French industrialists, Picard and Pothier. The sale was opposed by the Papal States, which consequently required Cisterni to stay in the partnership of the management company. The new company reopened old tunnels in Marazzana, providing underground connections across the Fanante, and built fans for ventilation, warehouses, workers' quarters, a pan factory for smelting ores, a foundry, a brick kiln, and a plaster mill. Despite these successes, the increased availability of Sicilian sulphur led to the company's bankruptcy within three years.

SAMSR and Trezza-Albani-Romagna (1841–1917)
In 1844, the mine's management was assumed by its creditors, mostly from Bologna. In October the same year, a foundry was built by the Alessandro well. In 1848, the first steam equipment was installed to mechanise extraction from the Alessandro well. In 1850, the Montecchio well was sunk, which would be used until 1900, after which it became an air vent. In June 1851, the first of fourteen kilns was built. These kilns, known as calcaroni, were elementary underground furnaces, and would be used until the mine's closure in 1960.

From 1848 until 1854, sulphur demand increased to combat an outbreak of powdery mildew in European vineyards: the sulphur from the region was considered more effective against the fungal disease than Sicilian sulphur.

On 14 February 1855, the Società Anonima delle Miniere Solfuree di Romagna was formed. The new joint stock company, registered in Bologna, was controlled by the Cisterni family. The company bought the mines of Perticara and Formignano in Cesena for 220,000 scudi, divided into 1,000 shares. It introduced explosives to replace the use of pickaxes on hard rocks, replaced the steam engine on the Alessandro well for one twice as powerful, built air tombs to remove sulphur dioxide fumes from the mine, and laid rails in the tunnels to facilitate sulphur's transport. The company also built a mutual aid fund and houses for workers, with support for their children, who were not required to work in the mines and attended a primary school built by the company. Miners in Perticara were the highest-paid on the Italian penninsula.

A Gill furnace was built in the Perticara mine in 1880.

The mine was of regional importance to movements for the unification of Italy: under the direction of mining managers and Pietro Pirazzoli,   who organised workers in favour of the Risorgimento,  the tunnels became refuges for partisans and arsenals for weapons.

Excepting further outbreaks of powdery mildew in 1868 and 1889, demand for refined sulphur in the region stabilised from the 1860s. It was increasingly targeted towards winemakers, who were willing to pay the premium over Sicilian sulphur for the higher quality.

In 1896, the management company was liquidated by the Court of Bologna, facing increasing competitions from sulphur mines in Sicily and the United States. The mine came under the ownership of a worker's cooperative, a sensational fact for its time. In 1899, the mine was bought by Trezza-Romagna, which became Trezza-Albani-Romagna in 1904, who had bought all the mines in Romagna and the Marche.

By 1912, the mine employed 340 workers. The company suffered during the First World War due to a lack of manpower, modern machinery, and fuel.

Montecatini (1917–1960)
In 1917, Montecatini bought the mine in Perticara at bankruptcy prices. The company also purchased the, the only other sulphur mine still operational in the Marche. Montecatini generously invested in Borgo di Miniera, a village situated by the Perticara mine, and opened two tennis courts for the mine's managers in the 1920s. By 1921, the mine employed 800 workers. Under Montecatini, the centre of operations moved away from the Alessandro well, whose buildings were repurposed for worker accommodation and a primary school, which opened in 1928, and is currently a civic centre. In 1918, it sunk the Roma well, renamed Vittoria after 1945, which was initially 280 m deep with a diameter of 3.5 m; the surrounding Certino site became the centre of Perticara's mining operations. Another well, the Perticara well, was sunk in 1921 on the north-west edge of the mine.

Before Montecatini, much of the mine was explored using the pillar method, which left thin and irregularly-placed pillars supporting chambers that were vulnerable to collapse: the layer of marl above the deposit was particularly friable. Montecatini cemented the mine's supports to avoid these collapses, building a second descent into the Fanante area to transport cement. In 1930, the Parisio well was sunk, with a depth of 255 m, to replace this operation, while the Fanante descent was reused to allow mules to enter the mine and tow wagons. Montecatini targeted production towards the chemical industry.

The initial years of Montecatini's ownership were nonetheless difficult, overshadowed firstly by the political and social turmoil of the Biennio Rosso, and secondly by an economic crisis in 1922. In that year, a 6 km cableway was built between the Vittoria well and Mercatino Marecchia to transport sulphur from the mine to the Rimini–Mercatino Marecchia railway. Also completed in 1922, the railway line had been built to transfer sulphur from Perticara's mine to Rimini, from which the sulphur could be transported to Rimini's port or along the Bologna–Ancona railway to a refinery in Cesena.

To protect Italian sulphur from competition with sulphur from the United States, which accentuated after the devaluation of the US dollar in 1933, the Mussolini government had introduced production limits, import bans, and a minimum price on sulphur.

In 1938, Perticara's sulphur production reached its zenith at almost 50,000 tonnes, about a fifth of Italy's total production, with almost 1,500 employees, who came from all over Montefeltro and the valley of the Savio. Perticara was the largest sulphur mine in Europe by surface extension, with a surface area of approximately 500 ha, 100 km of galleries, eight internal levels, four descents, and seven wells reaching a maximum depth of 400 m. Perticara's production was second only to Cabernardi's, which had a richer deposit and younger history. The Perticara mine was liable to large fires, one of which suspended operation in the mines for four months in 1937.

During the Second World War, the mine survived five Allied aerial bombardments, and continued to work at full capacity. Under the Italian Social Republic, Ciniro Bettini, the mine's manager, ordered that the mine be used to hide valuable materials and machinery from the occupying German army; many of its machinery was hidden in deep tunnels. On 30 August 1944, Bettini was arrested in an attempt to bring him to northern Italy during the German retreat. On 21 or 23 September 1944, the retreating Germans exploded the mine's major external equipment.

The mine was redeveloped in the post-war period under Bettini's direction. It resumed operations in December 1945, with the Italian state continuing the protectionist policies of Mussolini's regime. Although international sulphur demand increased during the Korean War, the Italian state, which purchased excess sulphur, was keen to close less profitable mines, leaving only the most profitable in Sicily. The mine was under particular pressure from American mines extracting sulphur at lower costs with new techniques. In 1958, the first redunancies took place at the mine in Perticara, leading to an unsuccessful campaign by trade unionists to save the mine.

The mine closed in April 1964, no longer competitive with international alternatives. It was the last sulphur mine in the Marche to cease production, following the closing of Cabernardi in 1958. The final 85 workers at the site were employed in recovering the last ores in the mines, which were smoked in March 1964.

Post-operational history
After the mine's closure, Borgo di Miniera, which had reached 1,000 inhabitants at the height of the mine's operation, rapidly depopulated, numbering 130 inhabitants in 2018.

On 18 July 2020, the Alessandro well collapsed, leaving a hole over 5 m deep.

Infrastructure and extraction
The Perticara sulphur mine reaches a maximum profundity of 60 m below mean sea level. It was the largest sulphur mine in Europe by surface extension, with a surface area of approximately 500 ha and 100 km of galleries. It extended beyond Perticara's municipal borders to Sant'Agata Feltria on the left bank of the Fanante stream.

Sectors
The mine developed over two principal areas: the Perticara mine, on the right bank of the Fanante; the Marazzana mine, on the stream's left bank. A smaller area, the Monte Pincio mine, was located to the southeast, below the town of Perticara, and there was some exploration to the northeast and far west.

and the Monte Picione mine, the southeastern portion.

The mine's tunnels were mainly dug in calcite and gypsum marls.

It includes eight wells and four descents.

Wells
The mine includes eight wells: Croce, Alessandro, Paolo, Montecchio, Vittoria, Perticara, Parisio, and Mezzena.

Until 1917, the mine's most important well was the Alessandro well, sunk by Cisterni in 1830. The well was 230 m deep and lined with a brick wall. It is located on the present-day Piazza di Miniera in Borgo di Miniera. In 1848, the first steam equipment was installed to mechanise extraction from the Alessandro well.

In 1850, the Montecchio well was sunk, which would be used until 1900, after which it became an air vent.

Montecatini sunk the Roma well in 1918 (renamed the Vittoria well after the Second World War), with an initial depth of 280 m and a diamater of 3.5 m. The surrounding Certino site became the centre of Perticara's mining operations. The Vittoria well mined the master layer. The well is currently part of the museum complex.

Contadini sunk the Perticara well in 1921 on the north-west edge of the mine's area in Perticara. The Perticara well mined the master layer.

The Parisio well mined the master layer.

The Paolo well and the Mezzena wells mined the uppermost gypsum overlay.

Descents
The mine includes four descents: Fanante, Monte Pincio, Savignano, and Tornano.

The main descent was the Fanante descent, 2.5 km southwest of Perticara's town centre, and about 340 m above mean sea level. It was built at the turn of the 19th century by Trezza-Albani-Romagna, and its site was equipped with a calcarone in 1908. The area west of the Fanante descent mined the uppermost gypsum overlay.

A second descent into the Fanante area was built by Montecatini to transport cement into the mine. After the sinking of the Parisio well, it was repurposed to allow mules to enter the mine and tow wagons.

Historic Mining Museum
The Historic Mining Museum (Museo Storico Minerario) was inaugurated in January 1970, initially on the site of a former slaughterhouse. Conserving the history of generations of mining in Perticara, the museum purchased archives and antiques relating to the mines that had been dispersed by the various companies that administered it. Its exhibits include machinery, photographs, and videos from the mine's operational years.

On 22 June 2002, the museum relocated to the Certino site, the centre of mining operations in the Montecatini era, in 3000 m2 of exhibition space. The new space was designed by architects Dario Ricchi and omenico Fucili. The complex, which had been purchased for the museum by Novafeltra's muncipal government, includes the Vittoria well, former power plant, compressor room, and lamp room.

As well as workshops and conferences, the museum hosts an annual exhibition of minerals, fossils, and mining antiques. In October 2005, an illustrative tunnel route was opened in the museum.

It is hoped that the mine can be reopened for touristic and scientific visits: since the 1980s, a shaft has been opened to monitor the stability of the surrounding subsoil, with a view to reopening a 1.5 km stretch between the Vittoria well and the Fanante descent.

Accidents
It is estimated that between 200 and 250 miners died during its operational history, with 157 deaths recorded between 1812 and 1959. In the late 1930s, in agreement with the fascist government, Montecatini relocated surplus miners from Perticara and their families to Arsia, where 185 miners died in an explosion on 28 February 1940. At least 150 families had relocated to Arsia from Montefeltro.