Vedano al Lambro

The first record of the place is a private one: Ansperto da Biassono, archbishop of Milan, who owned much of it, names it in his will. Until 1862 the village was simply Vedano; the rest of the name came from the river alongside, and it did not stay true for long. In 1928 a royal decree detached the land inside the wall of the Royal Park and gave it to Monza, to put the park under one jurisdiction: off went the site of the Autodromo Nazionale and the villas Mirabello and Mirabellino, and Vedano had nothing left to share with the Lambro.

The arms gather the families who held it: castle and eagle on silver from the old Vedani, the fruiting vine from the Gallarati Scotti, lords of the fief, the chequy of gold and azure from the Vedano. Villa Litta Bolognini Modignani, neo-Gothic in a Tudor key by Luigi Chierichetti, was the home of duchess Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini Litta; still private, its rooms are the Finzi-Contini interiors in Vittorio De Sica's film. The Madonna della Misericordia sanctuary stands so tight against the boundary that Lissone and Biassono long argued over it.