Boltiere

Boltiere lies in the plain south-west of Bergamo, and its name recalls the ground before the draining: from bolta, standing water, in a country of marsh and bog said to be the northern end of the medieval Lake Gerundo. The other explanation, a personal name, has nothing solid behind it. The village is first named in a deed of 909 citing an inhabitant, Andevertus son of the late Grasemundus de Bolterio; in 972 an edict of Otto I placed it under the bishop of Bergamo.

Ghibelline, Boltiere clashed repeatedly with Trezzo sull'Adda, where the Guelph Colleoni held sway; of those wars little survives but some walling of the castle, destroyed in the fifteenth century and now part of later buildings. Under Venice the state border ran just south of the village, along the purpose-dug fosso bergamasco, and beside the customs post grew the trades a customs post brings: smuggling and brigandage. The parish church of San Giorgio, consecrated in 1292 and rebuilt in the nineteenth century, is by tradition the work of the Lombard king Cunipert after a battle won; the old water tower, its service over, is now the war memorial.