Until the Napoleonic period Prevalle was one village, called Goglione. In 1792 its two churches, San Zenone and San Michele Arcangelo, became separate parishes, and soon afterwards Napoleon's Jacobins split the commune too, into Goglione Sopra and Goglione Sotto, which stayed apart under the Austrians and under the House of Savoy. A royal decree of 1928 put them back together and took the chance to change the name, awkward in Italian for its double meanings; the Brescian dialect still says Guiù, from goj, “puddle, marsh”.
The coat of arms was never officially granted: its blue bands stand for the water of the Naviglio and of the channels that have irrigated the plain for centuries, the silver for the colour of metals and the local forges. Above the village, in the saddle between Monte Budellone and Monte Paitone, opens the Buco del Frate, listed as number 1 in the Lombard cave register and protected as a natural monument to keep it from the quarries. The name is explained by a band of brigands who robbed travellers dressed as friars, or by a hermit; but no trace of human presence was ever found there, and the origin may be the Latin fractae, “a place broken by scrub”. Excavations yielded the complete skeleton of a cave bear.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Prevalle
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Prevalle, but an easy day trip away.