Fontanella

On the sixth of February 1413 Filippo Maria Visconti rewarded Fontanella's loyalty by making it a terra separata: no longer subject to any other city in administrative, judicial or fiscal matters, but only to the duke. A country village could therefore administer civil and criminal justice on its own, up to and including capital sentences. In 1431, when Venice sent its representative, the inhabitants drove him out and swore loyalty to Milan again rather than lose those privileges. Then, in October 1676, the assembly of heads of household agreed to be enfeoffed to Antonio Cittadini, a fellow villager who was also their largest creditor: in exchange the debts were cancelled, and the village lost the right to name its own podestà.

Four thousand three hundred and thirty-nine inhabitants in the province of Bergamo, between the Serio park and the Oglio Nord park. In the municipal territory alone there are forty-three spring-pools, about one for every forty hectares: resurgent water was its wealth for centuries, and it still shelters the Italian crested newt, Lataste's frog, the bullhead and the stickleback. The name, according to canon Annibale Besozzi who wrote its history in 1764, would come from the Burgundian Fontenhell, clear spring.