The claim
A wine room in the lanes behind Bologna's old market that serves wine and beer and nothing to eat. Customers buy mortadella, cheese and bread from the shops outside and carry it to the long wooden tables, which is how the place has worked since 1945, when the Spolaore family took the licence. A sign asks anyone who is not drinking to wait outside, and singing is forbidden indoors.
What the records show
The osteria dates itself to 1465 and says the earliest documents naming it were found in the Archivio di Stato in Bologna by the food historian Alessandro Molinari Pradelli in 1978, among them a plan of the premises. We have not seen those documents, and no source outside the osteria cites them, so the year stays a claim rather than a record. What can be followed is later: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli's printed game of Bologna's osterie, of 1712, lists the Sole, and the present sign is copied from that engraving. The print itself is not hard to reach. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds an impression of it — Gioco Nuovo di Tutte L'Osterie, an etching by Mitelli dated 1712, a plate of about 32 by 49 centimetres, accession 49.70.5, bought with the Elisha Whittelsey Fund in 1949 — so the document behind the sign is catalogued by a museum with no stake in the argument. The Archiginnasio library in Bologna holds the volume it belongs to, and the trade magazine Sala&Cucina described a facsimile of it in January 2025. That is the earliest document we can name, and it names a Sole among Bologna's osterie rather than proving the house at Vicolo Ranocchi is the one. Nothing has been traced about the age of the standing building.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1465 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| 1712 | First record of a drinking house here | osteriadelsole.it |
What to look for inside
- No kitchen: drinkers bring food in from the market shops
- Sign at the door reserves entry for people who are drinking
- Sign copied from Mitelli's 1712 engraving of Bologna's osterie
- The Metropolitan Museum holds an impression of that engraving
Visiting
Osteria del Sole is in Bologna, Italy, at Vicolo Ranocchi 1/D, 40124 Bologna. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- osteriadelsole.it/storia/
- osteriadelsole.it/
- www.salaecucina.it/it-it/losteria-del-sole-dal-1465-in-vicolo-dei-ranocchi-a-bologna.aspx
- www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/764865
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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