Before Casteggio there was Clastidium, an oppidum of the Ligurian Marici on the Pistornile hill, in the Oltrepò Pavese. In 222 BC the Insubres attacked it; the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus came to its defence, killed the enemy leader Virdumarus with his own hand and dedicated his rich garments to Jupiter Feretrius. The poet Naevius drew a tragedy from that day, Clastidium, among the oldest works of Latin literature. In 218 BC Hannibal did not have to fight: he bribed Dasius of Brundisium, commander of the Roman garrison, and took the provisions stored there.
The name changed shape more than once: the learned said Chiasteggio, and so Petrarch calls it in the Triumph of Fame; today's form is said to come from an error in the edition of the Triumphs printed by Aldus Manutius in 1514: the new variant was taken up by almost every later edition and finally by common usage. The collegiate church of San Pietro Martire was rebuilt in the nineteenth century, but its fourteenth-century bell tower is older than the church itself. In the Parco delle Rimembranze stands Pier Enrico Astorri's Monument to Victory, over eighteen metres of bronze that required a purpose-built foundry. Towards Fumo a fountain carries Hannibal's name: legend has him watering his elephants there.
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📅 Every year, on the Monday after the third Sunday of September
Casteggio celebrates Saint Peter Martyr on the Monday after the third Sunday of September, in the church dedicated to him.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
