Palosco

Palosco lies on the eastern edge of the province of Bergamo, near where the Cherio meets the Oglio, and its history turns on that border. No document records its origin: a Roman settlement is assumed, since the road from Bergamo to Brescia ran close by. The border even reached the coat of arms, where a curved red band is said to mark the line between the two provinces and three inverted hearts recall the Colleoni; and although the village is Bergamasque, its parish belongs to the diocese of Brescia.

In 1156, at Grumore, the communal troops of Bergamo and Brescia fought over castles in Val Camonica. The Brescians crossed the Oglio and made camp; the men of Bergamo, come to defend their land, stopped for the night expecting to fight the next day and were attacked at dawn before they could form up. The winners pulled down the castle and carried off Bergamo's banner of Saint Alexander, which stayed as a trophy in a church of Brescia; in the peace made at Telgate the Bergamasques also promised that the underage children of the dead would not seek revenge. Of the castle the keep survives, seemingly of the rare turris ante portam type, and at Torre delle Passere the ruins of a tower that for centuries appeared on maps instead of the village.