Canonica d'Adda

In 268 the emperor Claudius II defeated here Manius Acilius Aureolus, who was aiming at the throne and was later put to death in Milan. The victor, however, chose to honour his opponent: he gave him a proper burial and had a bridge built over the Adda bearing his name, the Pons Aureoli, from which Pontirolo comes. Nothing more was ever heard of that bridge, nor of those that followed: one from the twelfth century was destroyed at once by Barbarossa's troops, the others were carried off by floods. The ferry across the Adda did good business for centuries precisely because of this, and the present bridge, a single metal arch, dates from 1957.

Four thousand two hundred and seven inhabitants in the province of Bergamo, at the confluence of the Adda and the Brembo. The pieve of San Giovanni Evangelista, built by the converted Lombards, came to govern thirty-six villages on both banks of the river, and in 1155 an edict placed it under the direct protection of the Holy See: tithes and revenues went to its canons, and from them the village took the name it still bears. It ended in 1577, when Carlo Borromeo revoked the concessions on account of the canons' dissolute life and transferred the rights to a church in Milan. The pieve was demolished.