Vaiano Cremasco

Two neighbouring villages, two names saying the same thing seen from either side. Vaiano probably comes from avvallamento, a dip, from ground that in ancient times sloped down towards the water; a little further on is Monte Cremasco, which marks instead the rise of the bank. One is the descent, the other the ascent, and together they describe a difference in level that today one barely notices. In the document listing the places of the Insula Fulcheria belonging to Frederick Barbarossa the village is written Vallianum; in a deed of 1192, by which Henry VI ceded to the Cremonese his rights over Crema, it becomes Vajanum.

Three thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine inhabitants in the province of Cremona, on the western edge of the Moso, the wide farming area that was once marsh. Between 1868 and 1896, before and during the digging of the Vacchelli canal, remains of pile dwellings and some ancient artefacts came to light in the municipal territory and in neighbouring Palazzo Pignano, among them a small stone vase and a bronze spear: they date from the middle of the second millennium before Christ.