The name comes from the Latin mons acutus, sharp mountain, and it is the hill on which the castle stands. The first news is from 920, when Berengar, king of Italy — who had had fortresses built on the hilltops of the Brianza to stop the Hungarians — assigned to the basilica of San Giovanni in Monza the court of Calpuno, which included this hill. From then on the village's history is the castle's history: disputed between the canons of Monza and others, in 1209 it was awarded to the canons, and in that very year the people of Monguzzo rose against the basilica over taxes — but their rivals of Calpuno won the case. In 1380 Gian Galeazzo Visconti gave the castle to the condottiero Jacopo Dal Verme; in 1527 Gian Giacomo Medici, known as the Medeghino, seized it and stayed four years before Spanish and Sforza troops drove him out.
The most interesting page is from the nineteenth century: in its first half the castle of Monguzzo was a strategic base of the Carboneria, so much so that the Rosales, who then owned it, had to leave the village to escape the government. And as early as 1814 the Buerga wood, that belt of trees between the houses and Lake Alserio, is said to have sheltered some of those behind the killing of Giuseppe Prina. In October 1943 a partisan formation was set up at Monguzzo to recover weapons, distribute the clandestine press and act as couriers; on 25 April 1945 it was that formation which took possession of the town hall.
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📅 Every year, on 3 February
On 3 February Monguzzo celebrates its patron Saint Blaise, to whom the Chiesa dei Santi Biagio e Sebastiano is dedicated; Lake Alserio is among the sites of its territory.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Monguzzo, but an easy day trip away.
