County of Novellara and Bagnolo

The County of Novellara and Bagnolo was a small imperial fief in northern Italy, held by a cadet branch of the Gonzaga family from 1501 to 1728. Its lands lay between Reggio Emilia and Mantua, and its rulers drew income from tolls on the roads and canals that carried trade between those cities and the Po valley. The Gonzaga of Novellara had governed the area as lords since 1371, when Feltrino Gonzaga retained Novellara and Bagnolo after selling Reggio to Bernabò Visconti. In 1501 Giampietro Gonzaga obtained investiture as count from Emperor Maximilian I, and after recovering Bagnolo from his cousins in 1510 he reunited the two places under one title. The county was small but culturally active: the poet and painter Lelio Orsi found patronage there, the fortress was rebuilt as a noble residence, and marshland around the towns was reclaimed for farming. The dynasty died out with Count Filippo Alfonso Gonzaga in 1728. Emperor Charles VI treated the fief as vacant and granted it to Rinaldo d'Este, Duke of Modena, in 1737, after which Novellara followed the fortunes of the Este states until Italian unification.