Sulbiate

The little church of Sant'Ambrogio one sees today at Sulbiate is roughly half of what once stood there. After cardinal Borromeo's pastoral visitation of 1581, a decree established that the bell tower and part of the oratory could be granted to the building fund of the new church: the front part was therefore demolished and its materials went into the site of its replacement. The bell tower was spared, and two walls were raised on either side of it to serve as a front for what was left. It had belonged to a convent of Benedictine nuns authorised by a bull of Sylvester II in the year one thousand and suppressed in 1492 by a bull of Alexander VI: five centuries opened and closed by two popes.

Four thousand and sixty-seven inhabitants in the province of Monza and Brianza. The municipality was formed in 1909 by putting together Sulbiate Inferiore, Sulbiate Superiore, Brentana and the Cà and Cazzullo farmsteads; the place name first appears in 998 as Sebeate and is said to come from a Latin personal name with the Celtic suffix -ate. In the courtyard of Palazzo Baraggia there is a Roman sarcophagus of the third century, set against a wall. The castle was built in the mid-fifteenth century by Paolo Lampugnani, a Milanese dealer in gold and silver, and his marble arms can still be seen in the first courtyard.