Castana

Castana appears in 974 together with its castle, in an exchange of property belonging to the monastery of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia: lands «outside the castle and in the fundus of Castana». It cannot have counted for much, because the diploma of 1164 by which Frederick I placed this territory under Pavia does not name it, and names nearby Montescano instead; Castana appears only in 1250, in the list of the Pavian lands. It was part of the fief of Broni, held by the Beccaria, until 1531, when it ended up among the lands confiscated from that family; then the Borromeo, and in 1740 the Pallavicino-Trivulzio, who were also the largest landowners in the comune.

In the eighteenth century Castana took in Martinasca, until then a comune of its own, and for a while it was called Castana con Martinasca. The castle is still there, private and restored, and cannot be visited. The building that makes the detour worthwhile, in this village on the hills of the Oltrepò, is another one: the Casa del viticultore, a house designed in the mid-nineteen-forties by Ignazio Gardella, one of the masters of Italian rationalism.