Passirano

Passirano, in Franciacorta, began as two places: Passirano Mattina and Passirano Sera, each grown around its own castle, fiefs of the Passirani family, and kept apart until a few decades ago. In 1479, after an outbreak of plague, the people of both had a sanctuary to San Rocco raised halfway between them; houses gathered around it until, by the nineteenth century, the two had fused into one. The enlarged sanctuary is now the parish church of San Zenone. Monterotondo came into the comune that same century, Camignone in the nineteen-thirties.

Of the Passirano Mattina castle only wall stretches survive; the one at Passirano Sera came through whole: square in plan, high walls of Sarnico stone in irregular blocks, two semicircular towers. The lower one, to the west, is called Torre della Specola: in the eighteenth century an astronomical observatory sat there; the moat is all but filled in. The town arms show, on blue, a sparrow perched on a twig, the letters C P above.