The name is a description. Foresto comes from the wood that filled the hollow, and a document of 1153 calls it busco qui nominatur Forestum; Sparso comes from the fact that the place has never been a single village, but nine hamlets spread across the territory: Chiesa, where the town hall and the parish church stand, and then Franzi, San Michele, Vallunga, Tremellini, Gafforelli, Oliva, San Giuseppe and Dosso dell'Era. A scattered forest, in short, that named itself for what it is.
On the Cunisio hill, which divides Foresto from the Val Cavallina, stands the sanctuary of San Giovanni delle Formiche, Saint John of the Ants, still a place of pilgrimage. The village's carnival mask is Grappino, in dialect ol Grapì: a peasant and grappa smuggler of the early twentieth century who travelled Italy selling the grappa of Foresto and gave the takings to the poor of the village. Here the whetstone was quarried, which the locals call molera, the stone that sharpens blades; pears were dried, and today Valcalepio wine is made. Three thousand one hundred and fifty-three inhabitants in the province of Bergamo.
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📅 Every year, on 25 April; the Grape and Flower Festival in September
Foresto Sparso celebrates Saint Mark the Evangelist on 25 April, in the church dedicated to him. In September, the Grape and Flower Festival is held, with allegorical carts parading through the town's districts.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Foresto Sparso, but an easy day trip away.
