Cologno Monzese

The name says the Romans founded a colony here: Colonia super Lambrum, on the left bank of the river, in the fourth century. The Monzese, on the other hand, does not come from the city of Monza but from the Corte di Monza, the church organisation under the archdiocese of Milan to which the village belonged: before 1862 it was simply called Cologno. The church of San Giuliano bears on its front an inscription dating its building to 599, in honour of Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards: it is the oldest thing the town possesses.

From Cologno Monzese a substantial part of Italian television goes out every day: the Mediaset studios, settled here since the seventies, have made the town a synonym for commercial TV — the name is by now a metonym for the small screen. Around the sound stages lies a town that grew fast after the war: those who came were above all families from the north of the Bari province, and with them Cologno became a city. The green metro line, with three stops on its territory, ties it to central Milan in a quarter of an hour; the Lambro laps it to the west and the Martesana canal cuts across the south, and it is there, on the cycle towpath, that the people of Cologno go to breathe on Sundays.