Borgo San Siro

For three centuries the village belonged to a hospital. From the tenth century the land, like that of nearby Garlasco, was the property of the monastery of San Salvatore in Pavia, and in 1250 it appears as Burgum Sancti Syri in the list of lands subject to Pavia; then it passed to the Beccaria. Their lordship ended in 1475, on the death without heirs of Agostino Beccaria, who had left it to the newly founded Ospedale Maggiore di San Matteo in Pavia: and among the hospital's assets the fief remained until feudalism was abolished. Following the fate of the Lomellina the comune passed to the Savoy in 1713 and until 1743 was a border land, because the Vigevanasco next door still belonged to the State of Milan. In the coat of arms, granted in 1997, is the church of San Siro as it appeared on the seals of the late nineteenth century, and an eagle in homage to the Beccaria, who had one at the head of their blazon.

The parish church is dedicated to saint Siro, patron and first bishop of Pavia, and was built on the foundations of a thirteenth-century chapel: work began on 13 May 1729 and ended on 25 November 1732. It is late baroque, a Greek cross on a polygonal plan, entirely vaulted and without supporting columns; inside are an inlaid pulpit, the marble balustrades of the high altar, twelve statues of the apostles in their niches and canvases by the Pavian painter Carlo Antonio Bianchi, while the patron saint is frescoed on the façade. In the same church is the tomb of Agostino Beccaria and his wife Zaccarina Lonati: the man who left the village to the hospital is buried in the middle of the village. In the hamlet of Torrazza, which belonged to the Dominicans of Vigevano and became part of Borgo San Siro only in 1927, the finest building is Palazzo Durazzo.