Broni lies at the foot of the Oltrepò Pavese hills, on the Padana Inferiore road. The Roman posting station that two itineraries call Comillomagus, or Cameliomagus, probably stood here, in country already held by the Anamari, a Celto-Ligurian tribe: behind those spellings lies a Camillomagus, the field of Camulos, the Celtic war god the Romans matched with Mars. Some put it at Redavalle instead, but the distances in the itineraries fit Broni better. Ghibelline along with Pavia, in 1216 it was burned by the league of Guelph cities, and later the condottiero John Hawkwood destroyed it again.
In 1249 the young prince Contardo d'Este, bound for Santiago de Compostela, fell gravely ill here and died. The story goes that the bells rang by themselves as he died and small flames lit around his body; devotion grew quickly, he is still buried in the town and is its patron saint. The middle school named after Contardo Ferrini was designed, instead, by an architect of quite another world: Aldo Rossi.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Broni
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
