Corte Franca

Corte Franca is a name drawn up in an office: since 1928 it has belonged to the comune that merged Borgonato, Colombaro, Nigoline and Timoline, four villages of Franciacorta close to the southern shore of Lake Iseo. The toponym recalls monastic courts released from taxes, the corti franche, and it has a basis: Borgonato and Timoline are named as monastery courts in very old documents. No settlement carries the name; the town hall stayed at Nigoline until the nineties, then moved to Timoline.

Timoline appears in 766 as curte Temoninas, in a deed by which Adelchis, son of the Lombard king Desiderius, confirmed its possession to the Brescia monastery of San Salvatore, where his sister Anselperga was abbess. The four villages are still legible in the quartered arms: the wavy band is the Longherone stream of Nigoline, the mill wheel with sixteen blades is that of Colombaro's old mill, the two castles stand for Borgonato and Timoline. Nigoline itself added the name of Geremia Bonomelli, the bishop of Cremona born there, to its own in 1971.