Castell'Arquato

In the Pliocene this was sea, and the fossils that remain have given their name to an age of geological time: the Piacenzian, so called after Piacenza. Part of the territory lies in the regional park of the Stirone and the Piacenziano. The first written mention of the place is a deed of sale of 13 March 760, among the Varsi charters: in finibus Castri Arquatense. In some of those papers appears a noble called Magno, who between 756 and 758 had the pieve dedicated to the Mother of God built, and a castle on a square base; when he died, in 789, he left to the bishop of Piacenza the village, the church of Santa Maria and the goods attached to it. The name, legend says, would come from a Roman knight, Caio Torquato; more probably from the square shape of that first military settlement.

Self-government here has a written price. In 1220 bishop Vicedomino made over to the local community all the property he held in the Arquato territory, granting it in emphyteusis for seven hundred Piacentine lire; and for two hundred more, plus a yearly rent, the goods at San Lorenzo, Vernasca and Lusurasco too. From that year the village was governed for three years by consuls, then by a podestà appointed by Piacenza. In 1317 Galeazzo Visconti took the place and captured Alberto Scotti, and granted certain special graces: juridical emancipation from Piacenza and the right to make its own rules, which would become the basis of the 15th-century statutes. The fortress was begun in 1342. Luigi Illica, who wrote the librettos of Tosca, La bohème and Madama Butterfly, was born here in 1857 and is buried here.