Duchy of Modena and Reggio. Duke Francesco III had Engineer Vandelli build the main road to the Tyrrhenian Sea (he noted “La Vandelli”), and then Engineer Giardini (also with a dedicated road) made the slopes gentler. Francesco II also built the Sant’Agostino Hospital, with the adjacent hospice for the poor, opened the Ducal Gardens to the city’s population, built the Estense Library and the Botanical Gardens. In 1757, he founded the Military Academy in the Ducal Palace. With the Estense Code, he was also the first sovereign in Italy to draft a civil and penal code. A statue of him had been erected in front of the hospice for the poor, in Piazzale Sant’Agostino, but it was destroyed by hammer blows by a madman (who evidently disliked art) during the Napoleonic era.
