Lazzate

The earliest document naming Lazzate is thirteenth-century, the Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani of Goffredo da Bussero; the name probably comes from the Latin personal name Lacius plus the suffix -ate, marking belonging. In the fifteenth century the Sforza granted the village to the Missaglia family, not as a courtly favour but as payment for the armour they supplied to the ducal house. The lord never actually lived there. The Biraghi followed, starting the villa that still bears their name, then the Casnedi, until 1787, when the fief reverted to the crown for want of heirs.

In the eighteenth century Alessandro Volta often stayed here, above all in autumn, to rest and study in the quiet of the Groane; he remains the figure who gave Lazzate its fame, and the municipal arms show the voltaic pile resting on a table, borrowed from his family's coat of arms. At Italian unification the comune was attached to neighbouring Misinto and regained its independence only in 1905. No watercourse crosses the territory apart from one now-buried ditch; in earlier times there were four small lakes.