Locatello

The coat of arms is a pun: it carries a tawny owl, called löc in the Bergamo dialect, chosen because it sounds like the name of the village. The name itself, though, is disputed: some derive it from the Celtic-Germanic lok, «enclosure, fence», some from the de Locate family present in the valley between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, some from the Celtic leukos, a field ringed by wood. A document of 1444 shows the vicar of Almenno having land sequestered «in contrada de locatello ubi dicitur in locatello»; but the first record of the community is from 975, an act confirming the grant of the fief made by the emperors to the bishop of Bergamo.

The valle Imagna was Guelph and the neighbouring valle Brembilla Ghibelline, and the fighting here was harsher than in the rest of the Bergamo country: one hamlet is still called Brüstölìda, the toasted one, because it was set on fire in those wars. When the valley passed in 1428 to the Republic of Venice, which supported the Guelphs, the Guelph villages — Locatello first among them — were given favourable treatment. From the fourteenth century the valley lived on wool, from the pasture to the cloth sold in the city, and the water of the streams did the fulling: of that trade there remain the place name Follo and the bridge that carries it.