Corzano

The name of this village is a Roman land register. The plain around here was subjected to centuriation, and each miles received his own farm: the name of the gens he belonged to thus passed to the land, turned into an adjective with the suffix -anus. From that come the names of half the western Brescian plain — Pompiano from Pompeo, Meano from Mevio, Trenzano from Terenzio, Mairano from Mario — and from that comes Corzano too, which is the fundus curtianus, the farm assigned to a soldier of the gens Curtia. It is curious that Meano, one of the names in that same series, should today be a frazione of Corzano: two neighbouring assignments, ending up in the same comune. Through here passed the Venetian armies bound for the victorious battle of Maclodio of 1427.

The finest building is palazzo Maggi, halfway between a fortified structure and a lordly residence, one of the most important works of architecture of the Brescian sixteenth century: inside there are three rooms with frescoes attributed to Lattanzio Gambara, and in the rural court a portico on giant columns with double-height arcades. It housed one of the oldest noble houses of Brescia, the Maggi; the Gatti family, who own it today, open it to the public now and then. Then there is the oddity: Lina Wertmüller's film Io speriamo che me la cavo is set in a «Corzano» in the province of Naples, an invented place chosen for its assonance with Arzano, whose real name could not be used for judicial reasons. This Corzano, in short, shares its name with a village that does not exist. Of stations, on the other hand, it had two and lost them both: a stop on the Brescia-Soncino tramway between 1928 and 1950, and a railway halt on the Cremona-Iseo line between 1932 and 1956.