Every design for Sassuolo

Sassuolo is the tile town of Italy: most of the country's ceramic tiles come from the district around it, and a large share of them are shipped abroad. The reason lies in the ground. The town sits on the right bank of the Secchia, south-west of Modena, where the foothills break into calanchi, badlands of scaly clay carved into gullies by erosion, and that clay fed the factories that boomed after the war.

For people from here, Sassuolo means heavy snow in winter, since the high plain between Reggio Emilia and Modena is among the snowiest corners of northern Italy, and the tall Ciminiera "ex Marca Corona" above the rooftops. It means the Palazzo Ducale of the Este dukes and its fishpond, the Peschiera Ducale "Il Fontanazzo", and Sunday afternoons following U.S. Sassuolo Calcio in Serie A.

If you grew up between the clay hills and the river, the map shows exactly where.