Born in Santa Maria Nuova di Bertinoro in 1886 and deceased in Premilcuore in 1973, Aldo Spallicci was a pediatrician, poet, politician, and tireless promoter of the cultural and linguistic identity of Romagna. A central figure of twentieth-century Romagna, he combined civic commitment with literary research and the study of popular traditions.

While still a medical student, in 1907 he founded the satirical newspaper Pestapevar, whose ironic name alludes to the language of chemists and a taste for cultural provocation. Between 1911 and 1914, he directed Il Plaustro, a periodical that became the voice of renewed interest in local culture and rural life, anticipating themes that would later become central to his work.

In 1920, together with Francesco Balilla Pratella and Antonio Beltramelli, he founded the journal La Pié, devoted to local studies, poetic and cultural research, the preservation of the Romagnol dialect, and popular traditions. Still active today, La Pié remains an essential point of reference for the literary and cultural life of Romagna.

A physician by profession, Spallicci practiced pediatrics for many years, regarding his relationship with rural communities as an integral part of his human and civic commitment. After the fall of Fascism, in 1945 he became editor of the weekly newspaper La Voce di Romagna, contributing to the democratic and cultural rebirth of the region. He was also a senator in the Constituent Assembly, bringing attention to cultural and linguistic autonomy into the political sphere.

Aldo Spallicci’s greatest achievement was to have given the Romagnol dialect full dignity as a literary language, equal to any national language, through cultivated poetry deeply rooted in oral tradition. His work still stands today as one of the highest expressions of Romagnol identity.