Orzinuovi

Orzinuovi was designed on paper: the commune of Brescia founded it as Orci Novi, at the request of the local people, at San Giorgio di Fara, on a bank left by an old bed of the Oglio and facing Soncino. The date in the documents is 1193, though recent studies read it as a terminus ante quem rather than a birth certificate; the first nucleus had split off from Orzivecchi.

Since the men of Soncino kept raiding the new settlement, the inhabitants asked Brescia to rebuild town and fortress where the public gardens now lie: first palisades, then walls and gate-towers, and the one facing Brescia became the keep of the fortress begun in 1477. Nobody is sure about the name: Codagli derived it from the strongholds, then from the jars the Romans called orzi; the banner still carries Saint George killing the dragon.