Godiasco Salice Terme

In June 2012 the inhabitants voted to change the name of their municipality, which from Godiasco became Godiasco Salice Terme. The reason is arithmetical: Salice Terme, which is a hamlet, has more inhabitants than the chief town, and it is also where the thermal springs are. Earlier still, though, this was the centre of an enormous marquisate: the Malaspina of Godiasco split into five branches — Oramala, Piumesana, Casalasco, Cella and Valverde — which managed the capital jointly, and their fief came to include pieces of villages that today are separate municipalities.

Along the valley floor ran the Lombard salt road, and this way climbed the mule trains bound for Genoa over the Giovà pass and Monte Antola; at Molino del Groppo the Malaspina mill still stands, restored. Godiasco belongs to the territory of the Four Provinces, between Alessandria, Genoa, Pavia and Piacenza, where the instrument that leads the dancing is the Apennine piffero, once accompanied by the müsa, the bagpipe of these mountains. Three thousand one hundred and thirty inhabitants in the province of Pavia.