Underneath the remains of the 17th century Palazzo Pilastri, which was demolished after the Second World War, excavations uncovered traces of an earlier rural dwelling.

Built between the early and mid 15th century, it is one of the few and best documented examples of a late medieval ‘casa colonica’. The farmhouse, of which the stall paved with bricks and stone is visible today, was made up of at least ten rooms on the ground floor, and an attic on the first floor. The latter was accessed via a staircase situated in the corridor inside the house and via a second structure outside the portico, of which the postholes for the vertical timber supports were still legible. The portico opens onto the present day via di piazza Pertini. Here, the bases for the brick pillars on which the beams supporting its roof rested were preserved.

A few decades after its construction, the farmhouse underwent substantial alterations to its interior. Some of the rooms were demolished and enlarged, others reduced in size, and their functions changed (storage, cellars etc). The house also included a small cistern and farmyard. The cistern, built of brick and stone with a barrel-vaulted covering, was used to collect rainwater. It had a maintenance shaft and a small drain that worked as an overflow pipe. The cistern fill contained coarse ware and glazed pottery plates, bowls, and jugs of late medieval production. The pottery has been restored and is now displayed in the public library. The fill also contained numerous grape pips, peach stones and apple pips, in addition to chicken, rabbit, lamb, pig, and goose bones. The farmyard opened on the north side in correspondence with the portico and was closed to the rear of the house by a narrow cobblestone road, of which some sections were partially preserved beneath dumps of building site material.

When the house was demolished in the mid 1500s, the building materials were reused in the construction of Palazzo Pilastri. Known locally as “_e _ _palazoun_”, it was built in the early 1600s as a country residence for the noble Pilastri family from Cesena on top of the remains of the earlier farmhouse. It was also used as the town hall of Gambettola for a short period. It was bought by the local administration in 1892 and a few years later the palazzo was badly damaged by a fire. Following renovation, it housed the elementary school and the barracks of the National Guard. At the beginning of last century, it became a sort of large council house, giving a home to some of the town’s poorest families, as well as housing several services and the Vaenti tavern, one of the meeting places in the new town centre of Gambettola. Damaged by bombing during the Second World War, it was finally demolished immediately afterwards and the present day Piazza Pertini was built in its place.