Guardamiglio

In 1907 the embankment of the Po broke in front of San Rocco al Porto, and the men of San Rocco thought of a solution: cut the dyke further along to open another outlet for the water. It might have saved their village, but it would have flooded Guardamiglio. When word reached this side, the people of Guardamiglio all rushed onto the embankment, and after a violent scuffle the men of San Rocco had to give up. It is the kind of episode two neighbouring villages remember for generations.

Several explanations circulate about the name, and the most often told is also the least credible: in 1211, in a bitterly cold winter, the Po froze and the emperor Otto IV had to cross it; a feudal lord had straw spread on the ice hoping it would break under the weight, and "guarda mei", look more carefully, is said to have been the advice given to the emperor not to trust his subjects. More soberly, the municipal arms carry a stalk of millet. On the seventh of May 1796 the first combat on Lombard soil between Napoleon's soldiers and the Austrians took place here. Two thousand six hundred and eighty-seven inhabitants in the province of Lodi.