A journalist once asked him: “But why do you always put those grotesque characters in your films?”. Fellini looked at him with those feigned naive eyes and replied: “Because I knew them all. In Gambettola.”

Amarcord: the film that is a village

If there is one film in which Gambettola is more present than ever, it is “Amarcord”. The title itself — “a m’arcord”, I remember in Romagnolo — is a tribute to the language of those places. It is no coincidence that the film was shot almost entirely in Cinecittà, yet it looks like a documentary shot on the street.

Because the streets of “Amarcord” are not those of Rimini. They are those of Gambettola. The narrow alleys, the dusty squares, the faces of passers-by, the slow gestures of the old men sitting in the sun. The Latin professor who seems to have walked out of a Bosch painting — it was in Gambettola that Fellini had seen him. The village madman who, perched on a tree, shouted “I want a woman!” — same thing. The buxom tobacconist whom everyone desired — same root, same land.

“Amarcord” is a choral film, but it has no protagonist. The protagonist is the village. And that is exactly what Gambettola was for Fellini: a chorus of voices, a collective fresco, a gallery of characters who did not need a screenplay because they already existed.

When “Amarcord” was released in 1973, critics called it “a return to childhood”. In reality, it was a return to Gambettola. To those summers. To that grandmother with the reed. To that child who stole stories.

The Gambettola vitelloni: the boys who never wanted to grow up

In the summers of Gambettola, Fellini also met them: the vitelloni.

Not those from the film – the real ones. Young men who spent their time at the tavern, who didn’t want to work the land like their fathers, but didn’t have the courage to leave either. They stayed there, sitting on walls, watching cars pass on the Via Emilia. They smoked, laughed loudly, teased each other. At twenty they already seemed old. At thirty they were already finished.

Fellini photographed them with his eyes. He put them in a drawer of his memory. Years later, when he wrote “I vitelloni”, he wasn’t inventing anything: he was remembering. Those provincial boys, with no future but full of poses – Mora, Fausto, Leopoldo, Alberto – he had met them all in Gambettola. They just had a different name and a face more burnt by the sun.

In one scene of the film, the vitelloni walk on the Rimini pier on a winter night, with their jackets up and collars pulled high, and talk about women, money, things they will do but will never do. Fellini watched those same scenes in Gambettola, on a country road instead of on the pier, with the same gestures, the same lost air, the same melancholy.

It wasn’t Rimini. It was E’ Bosch. But it was the same film.

The Grand Hotel and the wheelbarrow: two sides of the same Romagna

Fellini’s Rimini is dual. On one side there’s the Grand Hotel, the Cinema Fulgor, the east pier, the establishments of the seaside dolce vita. On the other side there’s Gambettola. The fields. The taverns. Ciapalòs’ wheelbarrow.

They are not two separate worlds. They are the same thing. Because Fellini’s greatness was precisely this: having understood that poetry lies as much in the drunkard’s wheelbarrow as in the Grand Hotel’s chandelier. That the grotesque and the sublime coexist in the same shot. That there is no difference between Gnichéla’s marked face and Anita Ekberg’s lost gaze in the Trevi Fountain.

Gambettola and Rimini, in Fellini’s mind, were the same thing. Two sides of the same Romagna. That of dreams and that of toil. That of lights and that of sweat.

Casa Fellini today: from ruin to museum

Today, in Gambettola, in via Soprarigossa, there is still the house where Urbano and Ida lived, where little Federico spent his summers. It is a simple, unpretentious building, as were the simple houses of the Romagnolo peasants. Exposed brick, tiles, a courtyard where his grandmother kept the reed.

For years it was a ruin. The crumbling walls, the collapsing roof, the weeds invading the courtyard. Precarious, forgotten, on the verge of demolition. Someone wanted to tear it down and make a parking lot. Someone else wanted to let it rot.

Then, in 2008, the Municipality of Gambettola decided that it couldn’t end that way. It approved an ambitious project: Casa Fellini will become a cinema museum. With an adjoining International Open-Air Cinema Festival in the adjacent park. The house is located next to the largest green park in the Rubicone area: 24,000 square meters. It is adjacent to the Rigossa stream, which could become a stop on the cycle-pedestrian path from the sea to the hills.

It’s still a project in progress. But the idea is right. Because Fellini was not just the director of Cinecittà. He was also the child who ran naked in the fields of Gambettola, stole eggs from his grandmother’s chicken coop, and watched Ciapalòs tossed about in a wheelbarrow like a king without a throne.

Felliniesque itinerary: from Rimini to Gambettola

If you want to follow the traces of young Federico, the path is simple. And you don’t need a tour guide.

Start from Rimini. From the Grand Hotel, the one that dominates the seafront with its white bulk. From there, on foot, go to the Cinema Fulgor in via Gambalunga — the cinema Fellini frequented as a boy, now restored. Then head down towards Borgo San Giuliano, the fishermen’s quarter he loved and which is now an open-air museum: Fellini murals on every wall, faces of characters from his films looking at you from every surface.

Then take the car. 20 kilometers on the Via Emilia towards Cesena. In 20-25 minutes you are in Gambettola.

You arrive in via Soprarigossa. You park. You get out. In front of you is your grandmother’s house. It seems smaller than you imagined. But it’s there. The walls are the same. The courtyard is where your grandmother made men jump with the reed. The wind is the same that carried Gnichéla’s laughter and Ciapalòs’ grumbling.

Close your eyes and you hear them. It’s not difficult. They’re still there. Fellini froze them forever.

If you like, after Gambettola, you can return towards Rimini and visit the Fellini Museum in via Oberdan. But be prepared: it’s small. Sharon Stone, invited to Rimini a few years ago, visited it in three minutes and commented: “Is that all?”.

Fellini’s true legacy lies elsewhere. It lies in people’s faces, in the alleys of Borgo San Giuliano, in the murals that look at you from every wall. It lies in the Grand Hotel reflected in the sea. It lies in the east pier where the vitelloni walked with their collars up. And it lies in Gambettola, in that house in via Soprarigossa, in the courtyard where a grandmother armed with a reed taught a child that reality is already a film.

Three minutes, Sharon? Fellini deserved more. But perhaps the problem wasn’t the museum. Perhaps the problem is that Fellini’s true museum is not within four walls. It is in those 20 kilometers between Rimini and Gambettola. It is in every face you meet on the street. It is in the wind that today, as then, still carries Gnichéla’s laughter and Ciapalòs’ dignified silence.

From Rimini starts another trace: the Fellini Museum in via Oberdan. Perhaps not up to the name — Sharon Stone, invited to Rimini, visited it in three minutes and commented tersely: “Is that all?” — but it’s a starting point. Fellini’s true legacy is scattered around the city, in people’s faces, in the alleys of the Borgo, at the tables of Caffè Commercio. And in Gambettola.

Because to understand Fellini, Rimini is not enough. You have to go to Gambettola. You have to see where his father was born. Where his grandmother woke up the farmhands with a reed. Where a drunkard on a wheelbarrow made a child fall in love with cinema.

And the next time you watch “Amarcord” or “I clowns” or “La strada”, pause for a moment on the secondary faces. Those that make up the background, that don’t speak, that seem like extras. They are not. They are the ghosts of Gambettola. They are Gnichéla, Ciapalòs, the real vitelloni, the grandmother’s farmhands. Fellini never forgot them. He took them all with him, from via Soprarigossa to Cinecittà, from that wheelbarrow to an Oscar.

That’s what Fellini was: a child who never stopped stealing stories. And E’ Bosch, the wood, was his favorite place to do it.

Frequently Asked Questions about Fellini and Gambettola

What is the connection between Fellini and Gambettola?

Federico Fellini’s father, Urbano, was originally from Gambettola. Young Federico spent his childhood summers in the village with his grandmother, and from there he drew many characters and scenes for his films.

Where is Casa Fellini in Gambettola?

In via Soprarigossa, in Gambettola (FC). After years of abandonment, the Municipality has approved a project to transform it into a cinema museum with an open-air festival.

What does “E’ Bosch” mean?

It is the dialect name for Gambettola, meaning “the wood”. Fellini loved the assonance with Hieronymus Bosch, the Flemish painter, and said that when he thought of Gambettola, Bosch came to mind.

Which Fellini films are inspired by Gambettola?

“Amarcord,” “I clowns,” and “La strada” in particular contain characters and atmospheres born from Fellini’s summers in Gambettola. Almost all of his films echo rural Romagna.

How far is Gambettola from Rimini?

About 20 kilometers west, on the Via Emilia towards Cesena. It takes 20-25 minutes by car.

Fellini was not just any man from Rimini. He was a man with roots in the land of E’ Bosch, a village that looked like a Bosch painting and gave him the faces, stories and obsessions of a lifetime. If you really want to understand Fellini, Rimini isn’t enough. You need to go to Gambettola. And afterwards, let them recommend a good restaurant where you can eat like at grandma’s. At Aqua Hotel, they know.

Il paese di Bosch: il legame segreto tra Fellini e Gambettola

He was not from Rimini.

He was not Roman.

He was from E’ Bosch.

Federico Fellini, the director who invented a new way of making cinema, the visionary who put Rimini on the world map — his blood came from a village on the Via Emilia, halfway between Savignano sul Rubicone and Cesena. A village that doesn’t even exist in dialect: it’s called E’ Bosch, “the wood”. E’ Bosch, like the Flemish painter. And it’s no coincidence.

He himself said it, with that serious face and laughing eyes: “When I think of Gambettola, Hieronymus Bosch always comes to mind.”

Because Gambettola — his father’s village, his grandmother’s village, the village of the longest summers of his life — was a Bosch painting. With those twisted bodies, those marked faces, those coarse laughs that came from the taverns. A village that seemed to come out of a sixteenth-century nightmare, but which for Fellini was simply home.

It was not a village. It was his secret archive.

20 kilometers west of Rimini. A handful of houses, a bell tower, the Via Emilia cutting it in two. But within those alleys, in those fields, under that beating summer sun, Fellini stole everything he needed. The faces, the bodies, the voices, the stories.

His cinema comes from there.

“E’ Bosch”: the village that doesn’t exist on paper

Gambettola in dialect doesn’t exist. No one has ever called it that. For the Romagnoli, it has always been E’ Bosch.

The wood.

Because before the houses, the roads, the Via Emilia arrived, there were only trees. A dense thicket that covered the plain down to the sea. And when the first farmers cleared the land, the name remained: E’ Bosch, the wood. A place where civilization arrived late and with difficulty. Where traditions were harsh, faces wrinkled, gestures slow.

Fellini loved this name. He said it with his mouth full of Romagnolo syllables: “E’ Bosch”. And immediately after added: “Like Hieronymus Bosch”. A play on words that was not just a game. Because those farmers with twisted faces, those men with bellies swollen with wine and broken teeth, those grandmothers armed with reeds who made men jump like puppets — they were the same characters the Flemish painter had put on his canvases three centuries before.

Fellini’s Romagna was not made of postcards. It was made of big noses, calloused hands, eyes that had seen too much sun and too much wine. It was Bosch’s Romagna. It was E’ Bosch.

Father Urbano: the salesman who came from the woods

Federico’s father, Urbano Fellini, was originally from Gambettola.

He was a liquor, confectionery and food representative. A job that took him around Romagna, up and down the Via Emilia, with a suitcase full of samples and a hat on his head. A job as a provincial street vendor, without glory, without real money.

Urbano met Ida Barbiani in Rome, during one of those business trips. She was Roman, young, with a head full of dreams. He was a man from Gambettola with a harsh Romagnolo accent. Two worlds that met by chance.

After their engagement, the two lived for a while in Gambettola, in via Soprarigossa, in the Fellini family home. Then they moved to Rimini, where Federico was born on January 20, 1920.

Fellini was not a true Riminese. He was half Roman and half “from E’ Bosch”. A hybrid. A man who had the head of his Roman mother — sharp, ironic, urban — and the roots of his peasant father — slow, deep, ancient. Two worlds that clashed within him and that, perhaps, generated his vision of cinema. A continuous struggle between the sacred and the profane, between the city and the countryside, between reality and dream.

Federico’s brother was also named Riccardo. His sister Maddalena too. All born in Rimini. But their roots were in Gambettola. And Federico never forgot it.

The grandmother and the reed: the summers that made a director

Federico spent his summers in Gambettola, with his paternal grandmother.

He himself recounted, in his book “La mia Rimini”, those summer mornings with a precision that only childhood memories can have:

“In Gambettola, in the Romagna hinterland, I used to go in the summer. My grandmother always held a reed in her hands, with which she made the men jump like cartoon characters. In short, she made the day laborers working in the field get to work. In the morning, rough laughter and a great buzz were heard. Then, in front of her appearance, those violent men adopted an attitude of respect, as in church.”

The grandmother distributed coffee with milk, inquired about everything. She wanted to smell Gnichéla’s breath — to find out if he had already drunk grappa before starting work. And Gnichéla laughed, elbowed his neighbor, became a child. An adult who felt discovered, caught in the act, and reacted like a child caught stealing jam.

Fellini watched, memorized, translated into images.

He didn’t know it yet, but he was building his set. Those fields were his studio. Those faces were his actors. Those stories — simple, brutal, comical — were his screenplays.

From those summers, Fellini took everything. Every gesture, every word, every silence ended up in his films. It is no coincidence that in “Amarcord” — whose title itself is Romagnolo, “a m’arcord”, I remember — there are characters who seem to come out of Gambettola. Because they had truly come from there. The Latin professor, the village madman, the fat local squire: they were all there, in those fields, under that sun.

Ciapalòs: the man on the wheelbarrow who became cinema

The most Fellini-esque character from Gambettola was called Ciapalòs.

In Romagnolo it means “Take the bone”. A nickname that is a film in itself. Ciapalòs was a drunkard. Every evening, punctual as the bells, he would be at the tavern drinking until he lost consciousness. Every evening his wife — a tiny woman, with a face marked by fatigue — would go to pick him up. She would load him onto a wheelbarrow and take him home, under the eyes of the whole village.

Fellini put him in “I clowns”. He recounted him this way: “One evening, the man was with his legs dangling out of the wheelbarrow dragged by his wife, in a state of blissful mortification, after having endured general derision. That evening, I met the man’s eyes, under his big hat.”

A few lines. But within them is all of Fellini’s cinema. Misery and dignity. The ridiculous and the tragic. The man who becomes a character, even before knowing he is one.

Ciapalòs didn’t know he was an actor. He didn’t know that a child with wide eyes was stealing him, impressing him in memory to return him to the world years later, in the form of a shot. He was just a drunkard on a wheelbarrow. But for Fellini he was already a masterpiece.

And it wasn’t just Ciapalòs. There were all the others. Gnichéla, who hid the grappa in his breath. The farmhands whom the grandmother brushed away with her reed. The women washing clothes in the Rigossa. The old men sitting in front of the tavern with their hands crossed on their canes. Every face was a film. Every gesture a scene. Every story a screenplay.

A western without gunshots: the film Fellini never made

Fellini loved the Romagnolo peasants with a visceral affection. He once said: “One day I would like to make a film about the Romagnolo peasants: a western without gunshots, entitled ‘Osciadlamadona’. A blasphemy: but, as a sound, it’s more beautiful than ‘Rasciamon’.”

He never made that film. But in a certain sense he always made it. Every one of his films contains a piece of Gambettola. A shred of that land. An echo of those voices.

“La strada” — with Zampanò dragging Gelsomina through the streets of Italy — is also the story of those peasants who left their land to seek work elsewhere. “I vitelloni” — those boys who never grow up, who wander aimlessly in a provincial town — are also the children of Gambettola who didn’t want to grow up. “Amarcord” — entirely, from the first to the last scene — is a fresco of rural Romagna that Fellini carried within him and never betrayed, even when he became the most famous director in the world.

A journalist once asked him: “But why do you always put those grotesque characters in your films?”. Fellini looked at him with those feigned naive eyes and replied: “Because I knew them all. In Gambettola.”

Amarcord: the film that is a village

If there is one film in which Gambettola is more present than ever, it is “Amarcord”. The title itself — “a m’arcord”, I remember in Romagnolo — is a tribute to the language of those places. It is no coincidence that the film was shot almost entirely in Cinecittà, yet it looks like a documentary shot on the street.

Because the streets of “Amarcord” are not those of Rimini. They are those of Gambettola. The narrow alleys, the dusty squares, the faces of passers-by, the slow gestures of the old men sitting in the sun. The Latin professor who seems to have walked out of a Bosch painting — it was in Gambettola that Fellini had seen him. The village madman who, perched on a tree, shouted “I want a woman!” — same thing. The buxom tobacconist whom everyone desired — same root, same land.

“Amarcord” is a choral film, but it has no protagonist. The protagonist is the village. And that is exactly what Gambettola was for Fellini: a chorus of voices, a collective fresco, a gallery of characters who did not need a screenplay because they already existed.

When “Amarcord” was released in 1973, critics called it “a return to childhood”. In reality, it was a return to Gambettola. To those summers. To that grandmother with the reed. To that child who stole stories.

The Gambettola vitelloni: the boys who never wanted to grow up

In the summers of Gambettola, Fellini also met them: the vitelloni.

Not those from the film – the real ones. Young men who spent their time at the tavern, who didn’t want to work the land like their fathers, but didn’t have the courage to leave either. They stayed there, sitting on walls, watching cars pass on the Via Emilia. They smoked, laughed loudly, teased each other. At twenty they already seemed old. At thirty they were already finished.

Fellini photographed them with his eyes. He put them in a drawer of his memory. Years later, when he wrote “I vitelloni”, he wasn’t inventing anything: he was remembering. Those provincial boys, with no future but full of poses – Mora, Fausto, Leopoldo, Alberto – he had met them all in Gambettola. They just had a different name and a face more burnt by the sun.

In one scene of the film, the vitelloni walk on the Rimini pier on a winter night, with their jackets up and collars pulled high, and talk about women, money, things they will do but will never do. Fellini watched those same scenes in Gambettola, on a country road instead of on the pier, with the same gestures, the same lost air, the same melancholy.

It wasn’t Rimini. It was E’ Bosch. But it was the same film.

The Grand Hotel and the wheelbarrow: two sides of the same Romagna

Fellini’s Rimini is dual. On one side there’s the Grand Hotel, the Cinema Fulgor, the east pier, the establishments of the seaside dolce vita. On the other side there’s Gambettola. The fields. The taverns. Ciapalòs’ wheelbarrow.

They are not two separate worlds. They are the same thing. Because Fellini’s greatness was precisely this: having understood that poetry lies as much in the drunkard’s wheelbarrow as in the Grand Hotel’s chandelier. That the grotesque and the sublime coexist in the same shot. That there is no difference between Gnichéla’s marked face and Anita Ekberg’s lost gaze in the Trevi Fountain.

Gambettola and Rimini, in Fellini’s mind, were the same thing. Two sides of the same Romagna. That of dreams and that of toil. That of lights and that of sweat.

Casa Fellini today: from ruin to museum

Today, in Gambettola, in via Soprarigossa, there is still the house where Urbano and Ida lived, where little Federico spent his summers. It is a simple, unpretentious building, as were the simple houses of the Romagnolo peasants. Exposed brick, tiles, a courtyard where his grandmother kept the reed.

For years it was a ruin. The crumbling walls, the collapsing roof, the weeds invading the courtyard. Precarious, forgotten, on the verge of demolition. Someone wanted to tear it down and make a parking lot. Someone else wanted to let it rot.

Then, in 2008, the Municipality of Gambettola decided that it couldn’t end that way. It approved an ambitious project: Casa Fellini will become a cinema museum. With an adjoining International Open-Air Cinema Festival in the adjacent park. The house is located next to the largest green park in the Rubicone area: 24,000 square meters. It is adjacent to the Rigossa stream, which could become a stop on the cycle-pedestrian path from the sea to the hills.

It’s still a project in progress. But the idea is right. Because Fellini was not just the director of Cinecittà. He was also the child who ran naked in the fields of Gambettola, stole eggs from his grandmother’s chicken coop, and watched Ciapalòs tossed about in a wheelbarrow like a king without a throne.

Felliniesque itinerary: from Rimini to Gambettola

If you want to follow the traces of young Federico, the path is simple. And you don’t need a tour guide.

Start from Rimini. From the Grand Hotel, the one that dominates the seafront with its white bulk. From there, on foot, go to the Cinema Fulgor in via Gambalunga — the cinema Fellini frequented as a boy, now restored. Then head down towards Borgo San Giuliano, the fishermen’s quarter he loved and which is now an open-air museum: Fellini murals on every wall, faces of characters from his films looking at you from every surface.

Then take the car. 20 kilometers on the Via Emilia towards Cesena. In 20-25 minutes you are in Gambettola.

You arrive in via Soprarigossa. You park. You get out. In front of you is your grandmother’s house. It seems smaller than you imagined. But it’s there. The walls are the same. The courtyard is where your grandmother made men jump with the reed. The wind is the same that carried Gnichéla’s laughter and Ciapalòs’ grumbling.

Close your eyes and you hear them. It’s not difficult. They’re still there. Fellini froze them forever.

If you like, after Gambettola, you can return towards Rimini and visit the Fellini Museum in via Oberdan. But be prepared: it’s small. Sharon Stone, invited to Rimini a few years ago, visited it in three minutes and commented: “Is that all?”.

Fellini’s true legacy lies elsewhere. It lies in people’s faces, in the alleys of Borgo San Giuliano, in the murals that look at you from every wall. It lies in the Grand Hotel reflected in the sea. It lies in the east pier where the vitelloni walked with their collars up. And it lies in Gambettola, in that house in via Soprarigossa, in the courtyard where a grandmother armed with a reed taught a child that reality is already a film.

Three minutes, Sharon? Fellini deserved more. But perhaps the problem wasn’t the museum. Perhaps the problem is that Fellini’s true museum is not within four walls. It is in those 20 kilometers between Rimini and Gambettola. It is in every face you meet on the street. It is in the wind that today, as then, still carries Gnichéla’s laughter and Ciapalòs’ dignified silence.

From Rimini starts another trace: the Fellini Museum in via Oberdan. Perhaps not up to the name — Sharon Stone, invited to Rimini, visited it in three minutes and commented tersely: “Is that all?” — but it’s a starting point. Fellini’s true legacy is scattered around the city, in people’s faces, in the alleys of the Borgo, at the tables of Caffè Commercio. And in Gambettola.

Because to understand Fellini, Rimini is not enough. You have to go to Gambettola. You have to see where his father was born. Where his grandmother woke up the farmhands with a reed. Where a drunkard on a wheelbarrow made a child fall in love with cinema.

And the next time you watch “Amarcord” or “I clowns” or “La strada”, pause for a moment on the secondary faces. Those that make up the background, that don’t speak, that seem like extras. They are not. They are the ghosts of Gambettola. They are Gnichéla, Ciapalòs, the real vitelloni, the grandmother’s farmhands. Fellini never forgot them. He took them all with him, from via Soprarigossa to Cinecittà, from that wheelbarrow to an Oscar.

That’s what Fellini was: a child who never stopped stealing stories. And E’ Bosch, the wood, was his favorite place to do it.

Frequently Asked Questions about Fellini and Gambettola

What is the connection between Fellini and Gambettola?

Federico Fellini’s father, Urbano, was originally from Gambettola. Young Federico spent his childhood summers in the village with his grandmother, and from there he drew many characters and scenes for his films.

Where is Casa Fellini in Gambettola?

In via Soprarigossa, in Gambettola (FC). After years of abandonment, the Municipality has approved a project to transform it into a cinema museum with an open-air festival.

What does “E’ Bosch” mean?

It is the dialect name for Gambettola, meaning “the wood”. Fellini loved the assonance with Hieronymus Bosch, the Flemish painter, and said that when he thought of Gambettola, Bosch came to mind.

Which Fellini films are inspired by Gambettola?

“Amarcord,” “I clowns,” and “La strada” in particular contain characters and atmospheres born from Fellini’s summers in Gambettola. Almost all of his films echo rural Romagna.

How far is Gambettola from Rimini?

About 20 kilometers west, on the Via Emilia towards Cesena. It takes 20-25 minutes by car.

Fellini was not just any man from Rimini. He was a man with roots in the land of E’ Bosch, a village that looked like a Bosch painting and gave him the faces, stories and obsessions of a lifetime. If you really want to understand Fellini, Rimini isn’t enough. You need to go to Gambettola. And afterwards, let them recommend a good restaurant where you can eat like at grandma’s. At Aqua Hotel, they know.