It was Rosy, who runs the village mini-market, who convinced me to participate. At first I was sceptical. Today, all I can say is that there’s nothing better one could be forced to do

Samuele Nucci

San Leo (Rimini), one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, is built on an enormous impassable rocky mass that offers a bird’s eye view on the Marecchia river valley. A single gate provides access to the historical centre, dominated by the Fortress, one of the most important monuments in the Emilia-Romagna region. To reach it, one takes Via Giacomo Leopardi, the first street on the right. A few steps further, the sign of a bakery is found, Il Forno di San Leo boasting a long history of bread-making that began in 1939, stopped after almost 80 years in business and, after a one-year hiatus, has now successfully resumed. The bakery, indeed, remained closed for about a year, at the turn of 2018 and 2019, but that break was the spur that led to the establishment of the Fer-Menti Leontine community cooperative, set up by citizens that joined efforts as producers/providers and users of goods and services. The cooperative was founded in San Leo in August 2019. The reopening of the bakery was its very first project.

San Leo is the capital town of the ancient Montefeltro, a borderland between Tuscany, Romagna and Marche. Bread, here, is completely salt-free, Tuscan-style: “Thebakery was an identity place. Vittorio and Giacomina’s decision to close it was certainly one of the things that brought the community together. On Sundays, people would come up to San Leo to buy Vittorio’s Toscano bread all the way from Rimini”, says Samuele Nucci. . Born in 1995, he is one of the directors of Fer-Menti Leontine and in 2020 he took part in Fondazione Edoardo Garrone’s ReStartApp ‘on-campus’ course. Samuele was born and raised in one of the many rural villages scattered in this area. He loves San Leo so much that he has created a tourist information portal dedicated to the village, «Guida San Leo».

At the end of 2018, the closing of the only existing bakery affected a village that has fewer and fewer inhabitants but half a dozen restaurants and which from May to September is packed with tourists. At that time, Confcooperative (the Italian confederation of cooperatives) was starting a participatory process to develop the community cooperation model in the Alta Valmarecchia valley. which started Appennino l’Hub, which started Appennino l’Hub,. the first incubator of ‘citizens’ enterprises’ in inland areas. Fer-Menti Leontine is the first community cooperative established in the province of Rimini.