An ancient place, a deep soul

Sgarabìa di Sopra stands on Monte Orsello, in the municipality of Guiglia and a short distance from Zocca, on a hill overlooking valleys and the ridges of the Apennines. Since the seventeenth century, it belonged to the Poggioli family of Casa Sgarabìa, one of the area’s oldest noble lineages, who preserved its memory and discreet elegance for generations. Their stately residence-a rural complex with a dovecote tower and a private oratory-bears witness to a time when faith, art, and daily life coexisted in perfect harmony with the surrounding nature.

The oratory, consecrated and still intact in its eighteenth-century structure, recounts a fascinating chapter of local history: beneath its stone vaults and sandstone walls, generations celebrated weddings and religious rites, while the marble plaque dedicated to the Poggioli family recalls the devotion and sense of continuity that have marked the life of this place.

Not far away, in the hamlet of La Tagliata, stands another evocative building: the ancient Oratory of Santa Maria Maddalena, owned by the Tagliati family since the sixteenth century. Records tell that this stretch of land on Monte Orsello was already in the seventeenth century a refuge for guards and travelers, due to its sheltered, secluded position. Expanded in the eighteenth century and later transformed into a rural dwelling, the oratory still preserves stone vaults, a full-arched entrance, and the austere beauty of traditional Emilian rural architecture.

These testimonies-the tower, the stone dwellings, the sandstone portals, the thresholds polished by time-are the deep roots of Borgo Sgarabìa. Here, every stone tells a story of people and nature, of work and faith, of silence and perseverance.