Casanova Lonati

Casanova Lonati carries the surname of the family that was its lord, and that surname most probably came to it as the reward for an arrest. In 1386 the fief was given to marquis Bernardo de Lonati, a citizen of Pavia whom the documents call a magnificent and powerful knight of the ducal arms and most faithful to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, captain general of the state of Milan; and the duke is thought to have rewarded him in this way for the part he took in the capture of his uncle Bernabò. The place, at any rate, already existed: it appears for the first time in 1250, in the list of the lands of the Pavia domain. It belonged to the district and then to the fief of Broni, whose fortunes it always followed, passing in 1536 from the Beccaria to the Arrigoni of Milan, who held it until the end of feudalism, in 1797.

Both families are on the arms, and each has put its own eagle there. From the Lonati come the three silver crescents on red and the gold chief with the black eagle; from the Arrigoni the band of red and silver and the black crowned eagle on gold. The village, which is one of the smallest in the province, lies in the plain of the Oltrepò, on the right bank of the Scuropasso stream, a few kilometres before it ends in the Po: low country, little more than sixty metres above the sea, with a parish church of ancient foundation that keeps a good many works by artists of the area.