Castrezzato lies in the flat western Bassa Bresciana, crossed to the north by the Trenzana-Travagliata and Castrina canals. The name is traced to the Latin castrum, for a medieval castle, or to the Roman name Castricius, read on some Lombard gravestones. The village grew inside that castrum; after the castle fell in a twelfth-century war, in 1205 Brescia ordered it rebuilt and granted privileges and exemptions, so the place was called Castelfranco. The stronghold stood on the defensive line Brescia ran from Iseo to Quinzano.
The noble families that owned the walls gave them to the commune; the walls lost their purpose and fell to ruin, the moats were filled in to make roads, and the ring road still traces the hexagonal outline of the walled town. Only the tower survives, now a bell tower, and a battlemented tower returns on the coat of arms between two wolves rearing at it, heads turned outward. A fresco in via Battisti recalls the apparition in which, in 1378, Saint Anthony and armed angels are said to have routed the Visconti army led by Giovanni Oldofredi.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Castrezzato
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
