Azzano San Paolo

The name, many scholars hold, comes from a Roman landowner, Attius; the first known mention is from 875, in a will where a certain Agemundi de Aciano appears as witness. In the Middle Ages the village counted as an outpost of Bergamo: it was fitted with towers and a castle and caught up in the fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines. The castle left its name behind: the oldest quarter, around the old church, still goes by it. The municipal arms are half military and half devotional, a red battlemented tower beside the figure of Saint Paul.

The most notable episode is dated 20 February 1083, when Count Alberto allowed the serfs of the glebe to take possession of houses, land and goods of every kind; the act is recorded in official documents. In 1896 nuns from the Matris Domini monastery in Bergamo founded a Dominican convent here, fitting it into an old country villa and a silk mill of the Morlani counts. In the old church of San Paolo, whose bell tower stands apart, the apse keeps two frescoes attributed to Antonio Cifrondi: a well-preserved Last Supper and a Sacrifice of Melchizedek ruined by damp.