Provincia di Forlì-Cesena
The Rubicone department exceeds modern Forli-Cesena
The Napoleonic Dipartimento del Rubicone is much larger than the province that succeeded it. Its acts, 1806-1815, cover Faenza, Cattolica, Misano, Coriano, Montescudo, Pennabilli, Casteldelci and Maiolo — places now in Ravenna, Rimini and, in six cases, Pesaro-Urbino. A family from any of them has its Napoleonic civil registration here, in a different province and sometimes a different region from where they live now.
Your roots
Not sure which comune? Ask OrsoExplore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Forlì-Cesena
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Forli-Cesena holds
The archive operates with the section of Cesena.
Its principal civil holding is the Stato civile del Dipartimento del Rubicone, the Napoleonic territorial order, with acts from 1806 to 1815. The localities covered include Bertinoro, Cesena, Civitella di Romagna, Faenza, Forli, Forlimpopoli, Gambettola, Gatteo, Longiano, Meldola, Mercato Saraceno, Montefiore, Pennabilli, Casteldelci, Maiolo, Montescudo, Coriano, Cattolica and Misano, together with several now in the province of Pesaro-Urbino: Macerata Feltria, Monte Altavellio, Monte Grimano, Montemaggio, Piagnano, Piandimeleto.
The departmental boundary does not match the modern province. Faenza belongs to Ravenna today; Cattolica, Misano, Coriano and Montefiore to Rimini; the Feltrian comuni to the Marche. For 1806-1815 none of that is a guide, and the list is.
After 1815 papal rule returned and registration went back to the parish, so the fifty years to unification are ecclesiastical rather than civil.
From 1866 the comune's own ufficio di stato civile holds the first original, and second copies went to the tribunal.
The portal marks digitisation Completa for what is held here.
One further boundary worth holding: several Apennine comuni belonged to the Romagna toscana and were administered from Florence until 1923, so their older material may be catalogued in Tuscany.
Continue your research
The Napoleonic department covers comuni now in Ravenna, Rimini and Pesaro-Urbino. Check the list, not the map.
Archivio di Stato di Forli-Cesena on Antenati
The archive's own statement of the Rubicone department and its localities.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
A departmental boundary, not a provincial one
The archive operates with the section of Cesena and holds the Stato civile del Dipartimento del Rubicone, the Napoleonic territorial order, with acts from 1806 to 1815.
The locality list is long and it crosses three modern provinces. It includes Bertinoro, Cesena, Civitella di Romagna, Faenza, Forli, Forlimpopoli, Gambettola, Gatteo, Longiano, Meldola, Mercato Saraceno, Montefiore, Pennabilli, Casteldelci, Maiolo, Montescudo, Coriano, Cattolica, Misano — and, explicitly, several now in the province of Pesaro-Urbino: Macerata Feltria, Monte Altavellio, Monte Grimano, Montemaggio, Piagnano and Piandimeleto.
The departmental boundary does not match the modern province. That is the archive's own statement and it is the governing fact. Faenza is now Ravenna; Cattolica, Misano and Coriano are Rimini; the Montefeltro comuni are Marche — several of them only since 2009, when seven comuni moved from Pesaro-Urbino to Rimini.
So for 1806-1815, ignore the modern map entirely and check the list.
The province
Romagna, the Rubicon and a province constituted in 1859
The institutional predecessor, the Province of Forli, was officially constituted on 27 December 1859, as Farini's administration prepared Emilia and Romagna for annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Today's Forli-Cesena continues that lineage after later territorial and naming changes — Rimini was separated in 1992, and the province took its double name in consequence.
Before 1859 this was papal Romagna, and before that a country of small signorie: the Ordelaffi at Forli, the Malatesta at Cesena and Rimini, the Montefeltro in the hills. The Napoleonic Dipartimento del Rubicone, named for the stream Caesar crossed, swept all of them into one unit between 1806 and 1815, which is precisely why its civil registration spans territory no later authority held together.
Romagna's nineteenth century was politically hot: it produced the Carbonari conspiracies, the 1831 risings, and later both the anarchist tradition of Andrea Costa and the young Mussolini, born at Predappio in 1883 — a comune that became a place of state pilgrimage in the Fascist period and remains a complicated destination.
The land runs from the Adriatic at Cesenatico up the Savio, Rabbi and Bidente valleys into the Apennines. The Gothic Line crossed the province in 1944, and the mountain comuni were heavily damaged.
Culture & traditions
Coast, plain and the Apennine valleys
Romagna has a strong regional identity that cuts across provincial lines, and the people here describe themselves as Romagnoli first.
The coast at Cesenatico — whose canal port was designed with Leonardo's involvement in 1502 — was a fishing and salt economy before tourism arrived in the twentieth century. Its bragozzi and the sailing fleet are still part of local identity.
The plain along the Via Emilia grew fruit and vine and, from the later nineteenth century, sugar beet. Its social history mirrors Bologna's: braccianti, cooperatives and early unionisation, with mutual aid societies that kept their own member records.
The Apennine valleys — Bagno di Romagna, Santa Sofia, Premilcuore, Verghereto — were chestnut, charcoal and pasture country, with heavy emigration and, in several comuni, near-total depopulation in the twentieth century. Some of these valleys belonged to Tuscany until 1923, as the Romagna toscana, which is another boundary that moved under the records.
The Montefeltro comuni in the far south are different again: hill country of small castled towns, historically tied to Urbino rather than to Romagna.
Forli itself was rebuilt in the Fascist period with a monumental axis, and Predappio entirely so. Piadina, sangiovese and the osteria culture belong to the whole province.
Province established
1859
Comuni covered
30
Historic names
Romagna pontificia · Dipartimento del Rubicone · Provincia di Forli · Romagna toscana (to 1923) · Montefeltro
Languages & dialects
Italian · Romagnolo · Apennine varieties toward Tuscany · Montefeltrino in the south
Traditions
piadina and sangiovese · Cesenatico's sailing fleet · braccianti cooperatives · chestnut and charcoal in the valleys · the Malatestiana library
The institutional predecessor Province of Forlì was officially constituted on 27 December 1859; today's Forlì-Cesena continues that provincial lineage after later territorial and naming changes.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Forli-Cesena
For 1806-1815, check the locality list rather than the modern province. If the comune is on it, this is the archive — even if the family now lives in Ravenna, Rimini or the Marche.
For 1815-1866, go to the parish. Papal registration was ecclesiastical and the state archive's civil fond does not cover it.
If the comune is in the upper Bidente, Rabbi or Montone valleys, ask whether it belonged to the Romagna toscana before 1923; if it did, Florence may hold the older material.
Ask about the Cesena section for comuni on that side. Name the comune and the decade when you write.
What to see
Cesenatico — the canal port laid out with Leonardo's involvement in 1502.
The Bidente and Rabbi valleys — Apennine comuni, several once in the Romagna toscana.
Bertinoro — the fortress above the plain, and its hospitality tradition.
Cesena — the Malatestiana, a fifteenth-century library still in its original fittings.
Predappio — Mussolini's birthplace, and a Fascist-era planned town.
The Montefeltro edge — Pennabilli, Casteldelci and Maiolo, in the Napoleonic department.
Not yet in the collection
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