Cividate Camuno

In the village assemblies only the Antichi Originari decided: the heads of native households, and no one else. Nobles, clergy and outsiders — even if they had lived there for generations — had no voice in the councils of the vicinia. The surnames of the Cividate originari are on record: Malaguzzi, Laffranchini, Cominotti, Damioli, Ercoli, Bonafini, Tovini, Troletti. In an age when almost everywhere the lords gave the orders, here the right to deliberate depended on being born in the village.

The other age-old question was the bridge over the Oglio. It had to be maintained jointly with Borno, Malegno and Esine, while Lozio and Berzo each had to supply a pier; in 1364 Cividate sued its neighbours because the pact had not been kept. The bridge fell all the same, more than once: rebuilt in 1537 after a flood, it collapsed again in 1700 and two people drowned. Cividate had been the Civitas Camunnorum, the Roman capital of the Camunni, and keeps its theatre and amphitheatre; from 1863 it was called Cividate Alpino and from 1887, through bureaucratic confusion, Cividate Camuno. Two thousand seven hundred and sixty-two inhabitants.