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Dipartimento di Economia “Marco Biagi” | “Marco Biagi” Department of Economics 217

dressed the excessive weight and cost of the works, particularly referring
to the last solution, urging ‘lighter’ and more elegant interventions. As a
matter of fact, the only adjustment carried out was the boarding up of
the loggia on the ground floor. As a testimony of these complex design
stages, involving Teobaldo Soli for many years, the graphic material is
preserved in Modena’s Accademia di Scienze Lettere ed Arti.
After the final departure of the Este family from Modena in 1859 and
the subsequent annexation of the city to the newly created Kingdom
of Italy, the Foro Boario continued to be used as stables on the ground
floor and as barracks on the first floor.
After the unification of Italy the Foro Boario and the Piazza d’Armi’s
parks became state owned and used by the Municipality, that received
continuous requests from cattle breeders to return it to its original
purpose of cattle market.
In 1871 the building became the background of the new hippodrome,
the project of which was announced by Count Luigi Alberto Gantini
and by doctor Luigi Gregori, President of the Società Ipppica. In 1872
the building works for the transformation of part of the Piazza d’Armi
into a hippodrome started through the construction of a racetrack lo-
cated between the Piazza d’Armi and the Foro Boario. The cost was
incurred by Modena’s Municipality. More than two hundred and fifty
plants were eliminated and a wide road for the coaches was created
between the Foro Boario and the racetrack. The hippodrome and the
horse races were inaugurated in May the same year.
In the following years the Municipality’s requested to the Government
for the cession of the Foro Boario as it started to become urgent. As a
matter of fact, in 1876 an appraisal was written to esteem its value,
from which emerged an interesting statement of the multiple uses of
the building during the years. The negotiations lasted for a long time
and an agreement was reached in 1883, which envisaged the sale of the
Foro Boario for 40,000 Lire by the War and State administrations to the

L’orologio del fronte settentrionale, Foro Boario, Modena The Clock of the northern Front, Foro Boario, Modena