Verderio

Verderio is a comune that put itself back together only recently. Divided for centuries into Verderio Inferiore and Verderio Superiore — already in the fifteenth century the documents spoke of Verderio de sora e de sotto, upper and lower — it tried to reunite through two referendums, in 1994 and in 2004, and lost them both for the same reason: a yes was needed from both comuni, and the lower one always gave it while the upper one always said no. At the third vote the supporters were in the majority on both sides, and the single comune was reborn in 2014.

The name probably comes from the Latin viridarium, a garden. On 28 April 1799, while Napoleon was busy in Egypt, the battle of Verderio was fought here: the Austro-Russians of general Vukassovich forced the surrender of Sérurier's French troops, barricaded in the Villa Confalonieri, and of the three thousand dead left on the field many were Austrians. The victors, welcomed as liberators, then set about plundering and burning. Of the landscape of former times the land registry speaks in figures: in 1858 there were 8724 mulberry trees counted at Verderio.