Spirano

The old name of Spirano was Asperianum, and it meant a harsh place, hard to live in, or else the village of the Asperii. It appears for the first time in a deed of sale of 1033, in the form Asperiano, while Spirano is only to be read in a document of 1395 that settled the boundaries with the neighbouring villages. The settlement had grown up around a permanent Roman camp, placed where two roads crossed, the more important of which linked Milan to Aquileia.

At the edge of the territory, towards Cologno al Serio, stands the chapel of the Morti dell'Arca, the dead of the ark, and the name comes from a story that has been told here for generations. A stone ark that had once served as a burial place was found by a farmer, who carried it home to use as a drinking trough for his animals; but the ark returned by itself to where it had been, and it returned every time he tried to move it. The chapel was built in memory of that marvel. Of the castle of the Suardi, which in the thirteenth century was the chief building of the village, some parts of the structure remain instead.