Without reading too much into it, passing by Piazzale Gramsci and its tribute to Antonio Gramsci – one of the founders of the Italian communist party, who died in a fascist prison in 1937 – you notice also the Church of Santa Rita, and the nearby market. Left wing politics, Catholicism, and business-mindedness – seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows, but in Emilia-Romagna these different cultures exist side by side.