Castegnato lies in the southern Franciacorta, on flat ground between the Gandovere stream and the Seriola Nuova di Chiari canal. The name is contested: for the Brescian historian Gianmaria Biemmi it comes from a chestnut wood south of the village, for Dante Olivieri from the Latin family name Castinus. Some trace survives: the tax roll of 1641 records at Paradello a plot of chestnut land of one piò, held by one Aloisia Nassino. Probably not a wood but scattered trees in mixed cover, and that is what made them notable: the chestnut is a hill tree and here the land is flat.
The village appears as Castaneto in the inventory of the Brescian monastery of Santa Giulia, drawn up between the late ninth and early tenth century and attributed to abbess Berta, daughter of Berengario, king of Italy: it describes a manor with a chapel holding an altar, sacred furnishings and five books, two houses and dozens of measures of farmland. The chestnut stayed on the arms, a branch with an open bur on a blue field: canting arms, on record at least from 1783, on the frontispiece of the tax register.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on the second Sunday of May, a tradition born in 1685 with the relics' gift
Castegnato celebrates Saint Vitalis the Martyr on the second Sunday of May: the tradition began in 1685, when the saint's relics were donated during the construction of the new church. Since 1974, on the first Saturday of October, the Palio delle antiche contrade relay race is run.
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 Castegnato, but an easy day trip away.
