Montodine is a village left without its rivers. The name appears in 1023 as Castrum de Monte Odano, monte joined to a Germanic personal name — perhaps Odilo or Odino — though some tie it instead to the Adda, the Addua of the Latins, which once lapped the settlement and now flows past Gombito: the trace of that old course is the high bank that starts at the village and runs towards Moscazzano. The Serio went away too, but by human decision: in 1758 the Venetians diverted its course because it was by then eating into the Benvenuti tower. Of the tall, powerful tower that Giorgio Benzoni, lord of Crema, had built in 1407 to guard his border, ruins survived until the early twentieth century, then were pulled down to make room for the nursery school.
Two episodes left the deepest mark. The plague of 1630 reached here before the rest of the Crema district, and it arrived inside a garment: a man of Montodine, Alessandro Barbiero, had been given an infected greatcoat at Pizzighettone by a soldier. In two years two hundred and fifty-four people died, buried more or less everywhere, in the fields, in the gardens, in the houses, on the churchyard. In 1648, by contrast, the Venetian militia led by colonel Mario Benvenuti stopped the French heading for the Lodi country by sawing through the bridge over the Serio and bringing it down before they could cross; the village, fearing a bombardment, credited its escape to the Holy Crucifix, and has celebrated it every year on 12 May ever since.
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📅 Every year, on 22 July
Montodine celebrates Saint Mary Magdalene on 22 July. On 12 May, in Zavaglio, the feast of the Santissimo Crocifisso is solemnly celebrated.
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.
