San Giovanni in Persiceto (from 1912 to 1927: Persiceto; Western Bolognese: ) is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, northern Italy. Located in the northern part of the Metropolitan City, bordering with the provinces of Modena and Ferrara, San Giovanni in Persiceto is surrounded by the municipalities of Anzola dell'Emilia, Castelfranco Emilia, Castello d'Argile, Cento, Crevalcore, Sala Bolognese and Sant'Agata Bolognese. History Middle Ages The most ancestral records claim the town was first populated by Gauls, but later occupied by the Romans. The area appears to have been depopulated after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The flooded plain remained uncultivated until the rule of the Exarchate of Ravenna, when lands were drained again. The Byzantines also built a defensive line in the territory against the Lombards, but c. 727, under King Liutprand, the Lombards overran the Castrum Persiceta. In the 728 Liutprand created the duchy of Persiceto. It is likely that the village formed as the traditional Borgo Rotondo (Round Village) under this new rule. With the fall of the Lombard Kingdom in 774 the early-medieval district of Persiceto (later San Giovanni in Persiceto), that stretched up to stream Samoggia, fell under the rule of the County of Modena, then the Abbey of Nonantola exercised its power on the territory, and since the 9th century it was handed over to the County of Bologna. Likely that around the half of that century the parish church of San Giovanni was built by the Bishops of Bologna. Also in the 9th century, the Abbots of Nonantola (western side) and Bishops of Bologna (eastern side) gave out the first "ad meliorandum" grants of swampy and untilled land to the inhabitants of Persiceto; these lands would form the future Partecipanza agraria (Agricultural Attendance). After a brief autonomy (11–12th century), San Giovanni in Persiceto again came under political control of Bologna, till at the beginning of the 16th century, it ultimately subjected to the Papal rule. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the 'castle' or 'land' of S. Giovanni in Persiceto was enlarged by a second circle of walls outside the Borgo Rotondo and by expanded settlements, surrounded, like the castle, by ditches, gates and palisades. However, because of the rebellion of the inhabitants of Persiceto, ever since the 1420s, the High Council of Bologna decreed that the external villages and its palisades had to be removed, the ditches