Marcaria

Marcaria lies on the lowland plain along the left bank of the Oglio, in countryside the river kept reshaping: traces of older beds survive. The comune took shape between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries out of two formerly separate medieval curtes, Marcaria and Campitello, and its castle watched the border with Cremona and Brescia for centuries. That tie is kept in the coat of arms, where a fortress commands the Oglio with a wooden drawbridge and the shield carries the word Lapillus. Not every boundary followed the water: the parish of Marcaria reached across it, into the territory of San Martino dall'Argine, until 1987.

In 1251 Cremonese Ghibellines allied with Ezzelino da Romano seized the castle by treachery, helped by count Ratbolo of Marcaria and by Ubaldino of the domini of Campitello; the Mantuans took it back at once and killed Ratbolo, while Ezzelino burnt the castle of Campitello in reprisal. The affair caused enough stir that the conspirators were painted in a defamatory picture on the entrance wall of Mantua's Palazzo della Ragione, where some names can still be read. At Casatico, in the Castiglioni country court, Baldassarre Castiglione, author of the Cortegiano, was born on 6 December 1478; count Camillo later enlarged the court to designs by Giulio Romano, adding a star-shaped tower.