The Municipality of Sorbolo Mezzani was born in 2019 from the merger of the municipalities of Sorbolo and of MEzzani

The oldest human settlements in the Sorbolo area consist of the traces of the presence of terraced villages from the Bronze Age, found in Casaltone and Coenzo and an Iron Age settlement in the Ramoscello area.

In the Roman Age Sorbolo was characterized as a transit area of ​​the trade routes between Parma, Brescello and the Po River.

From the fields emerge today the materials of the Roman era, especially in the area of ​​Ramoscello; the area between Via Mantova and Frassinara, which with Pedrignano bears in itself the memory of the Roman centurial subdivision, in the course of the canals, ditches and plantings.

The oldest archival document in which the territory of Sorbolo is mentioned dates back to the year 835, when Queen Cunegonda establishes the dowry for the Monastery of S. Alessandro which includes precisely some assets “in Sorbulo qui regitur per Tuesperto “. (read more)

From the early Middle Ages, the land reclamation and recolonization works began by the monastic orders of Parma: the monasteries of San Giovanni Evangelista, Sant ‘Uldarico and the Cistercian Abbey of S. Martino de’ Bocci, which owned vast plots in the territory of Ramoscello and Frassinara.

The presence of religious orders will play a fundamental role in the structural and functional organization of the territory from the tenth to the sixteenth century.

Alongside the religious system, there was political power. An expression of this power is the system of fortified places, whose role was twofold: defensive and safeguarding commercial transits. The military role of the most important garrison of the territory of Sorbolo was played by Coenzo, in particular in the period of greatest tension between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, this allowed the control of the trades coming from the riparian territory of the Po, from the Reggio area (Brescello, Boretto, Guastalla) and from Parma.

From the fief and ecclesiastical property we arrive, with the Farnese age, to the settlement of the bourgeois classes or noble families of the city; this is the case, for example, of the Calvi Family, created noble in 1693 by Ranuccio and invested with Coenzo, the Campori-Menafoglio marquises, in 1636 by decree of Francesco I, the Gruppini who obtained the ducal familiarity in 1648 and the Lalatta, marquesses from 1695, owners of several farms, mills, a villa and a palace in Sorbolo.

With the 19th century and the relative constitution of the Municipality (the first Mayor of Sorbolo, Giovan Battista Pinetti, dates back to 1806), new public works and roads were built. In September 1808 the first school was inaugurated; social life is livened up: since 1864 in Sorbolo there has been a Mutual Aid Society among artisans; in 1891 the “Cooperative Society among workers” was born and in 1885 the “Cooperative Society of Welfare” with the purpose of opening a shop, organizing work and credit on a cooperative basis.