Niardo

Around the year one thousand the Vicinia was born at Niardo, one of the earliest examples of self-government in the Val Camonica: it had been created to limit the power of the feudal lords, and it administered what belonged to everybody — the woods, the mills, the sawmills, the forges, the summer pastures. It was led by consuls elected every year by the heads of family, flanked by the reggenti, and the voting was done with little balls, because almost nobody could read or write. Around 1100 the village also obtained its baptismal font, and with it autonomy from the pieve of Cividate.

Obizio came from here too. In 1191 he fought in the battle of Malamorte and survived the collapse of the bridge over the river Oglio; after that he left arms behind, became an oblate of the monastery of Santa Giulia and used his fortune to build the Minerva bridge, which let people cross the river without paying the Curia's heavy tolls. His relics came back to Niardo for good in 1798, and the village still venerates him.