Bologna, August 6, 2026 – When in 1976 Francesco Guccini released “Via Paolo Fabbri 43,” his seventh album, he could not have imagined that with that work musical tourism would be born in Italy, secular pilgrimages to discover the home of the ‘maestrone,’ hidden among the streets of Cirenaica. Demonstrating how close the bond was with Bologna, the places, the territory, his personal “Rooms of daily life,” to quote the title of another of his albums.
A relationship made of neighborhood customs, such as the one, now part of mythology, that connected him to the trattoria da Vito, just a few steps from his home, where the endless nights spent between the house’s ‘rosso’ and games of the beloved ‘Bolognese tarocchino,’ the card game of which he had been named honorary president of the homonymous academy, are legendary.
Two tables close but separate, his and that of his friend Lucio Dalla, each surrounded by their group of friends, each jealous of their own techniques and secrets to win. “Francesco was the usual occupant of a table at the entrance, while a little further on, but strictly separated, sat Lucio Dalla and his group of friends. Two very close worlds, but that did not communicate. Too different, Guccini, the philosopher, and Dalla, always joking, irreverent. They never played cards at the same table. In fact, the game was an additional reason for division,” recalled Paolo Pagani, Vito’s son, on the occasion of the singer-songwriter’s 80th birthday party.
And it was precisely at Vito’s that Guccini presented in 2013, “L’ultima Thule,” an album and documentary that, in his intentions, was supposed to mark his retirement from the stage, while his beginnings were at the Osteria delle Dame, near the torresotto of Via Castiglione, which in 1970 he opened with his close friend, the Dominican friar Michele Casali, to host young people who did not like to frequent the oratory.
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That small space would enter the history of great Italian singer-songwriter music, the true artistic ‘home’ of Guccini, a theater of jam sessions, unforgettable concerts with many friends. Starting with the American singer-songwriter Deborah Kooperman, who for the singer-songwriter constituted the city thread that linked him to his great love for folk from across the Ocean, starting with Bob Dylan’s ballads.
Guccini dedicated a space to Bologna and its traditions in his latest album, “Canzoni da osteria,” which contains, among others, La maduneina dal Baurgh ‘d San Pir. “It is a story strongly linked to traditions – said the Maestrone on the occasion of the album presentation at the Modernissimo – It tells of the Madonna of the Borgo di San Pietro who went in procession to the Pratello and the inhabitants of the neighborhood no longer wanted to give her back. It is by Quinto Ferrara, who worked as a printer at the Resto del Carlino and was one of the great singers of Bologna. It is a piece strongly imbued with nostalgia, which is perhaps one of the elements that most characterize this work.”
Nostalgia for an idealized Bologna in the following decades that no longer exists. That of the beloved taverns which, he also said on that occasion, “were actually very sad places, where very bad wine was drunk. But we who could not afford nightclubs like the Whisky a go go, made do. They were the only places where we managed to get familiar with the girls.”
