Monticelli d'Ongina

In a bend of the Po, inside the territory of Monticelli d'Ongina, lies the northernmost point of Emilia-Romagna: the village is in the province of Piacenza but pushes towards the other bank, and for centuries its history was written from that side. In 774 Charlemagne gave this territory to the bishop of Cremona; in 914 the borgo was divided between the dioceses of Cremona and Piacenza, and the dispute went on for more than two centuries. When in the thirteenth century the comune of Cremona took over the possessions of its own diocese, Monticelli went with the package, and with the building of the castle, in 1248, it became the Cremonese defensive outpost in Emilian territory: it had a podestà, a notary and a flag of its own, and Castelvetro, Olza, San Pietro in Corte and Borgonovo depended on it. The name, meanwhile, comes from the «monticelli», the little mounds of sand that rose out of the marshes, while Ongina is the name of a member of the Cremonese family Bonifaci.

The Rocca that stands at the centre of the village was built in the fifteenth century by Rolando Pallavicino, called the Magnificent, when his family had carved out a feudal state between Cremona, Parma and Piacenza. It was completed by his son Carlo, bishop of Lodi, who made it his summer residence and governed for more than forty years; in 1470 he also had the collegiate church of San Lorenzo built, today a basilica, where he is buried. After the last of the Pallavicino the fief was broken into three: a third to the counts Soavi, a third to the Casali — who took the name Pallavicino-Casali — and the rest to the ducal chamber. Today the Rocca houses the Ethnographic Museum of the Po, so the river has come home; the village also keeps a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery, and the territory is known for its garlic and its spongata.