Castel Mella

Castel Mella was called Castelnuovo until 1864, when a royal decree of Victor Emmanuel II swapped that “new” for the name of the river. Earlier forms run Castellum Novum, then Castrum Novum de ultra Mellam, then Castelnovo Bressano: the first half comes from castellum, a fortified village, the second from a Ligurian-Celtic word for a disorderly, angry stream. The Lombards founded the place in the sixth century, and a grave was found here with a sword among the goods; the first chapel went to Saint Syrus, first bishop of Pavia, the capital of their kingdom.

In the tenth century the farming village turned itself into a communal castle against Hungarian raids: a ditch filled with spring water, an embankment carrying the public road, a wall with lookout towers, a drawbridge whose remains were still visible after the last war. Inside those four Brescian piò or so of fortified ground lived about a hundred families of farmers, artisans and shopkeepers. The town's arms carry a fortress with its right corner in ruin, traditionally identified with the surviving tower of that wall. As for the river, on 4 November 1966 the Mella broke its banks and left the village under two metres of water and mud.