Villa Smeraldi

Villa Smeraldi is a rural manor dating to 1750, set along the Canale Navile near Bentivoglio in the Province of Bologna and protected today as an Italian national monument. The villa houses the Museum of Peasant Farming Culture, which traces rural life in Emilia-Romagna from landowner to sharecropper across several centuries, using original tools, reconstructed farm buildings, and documentary records of daily agricultural routines. The collection sheds light on the mezzadria — the sharecropping system that defined the Po Valley economy well into the 20th century — making it a rare institutional record of a largely undocumented social history. Visitors can explore both the manor and its preserved outbuildings within a quiet canal landscape that invites a stroll along the historic Navile waterway.