Mezzana comes from the Latin mediana and means river island, land in the middle of the river: the village stands where the Agogna joins the Po, and in a list of the territories of Pavia drawn up in 1250 it appears as Glarea Mezana, the gravel in the middle. For centuries it belonged to Gerola, which lies on the other bank, in the Oltrepò; and when the island stopped being an island and found itself north of the Po, that is in the Lomellina, it went on depending all the same on a chief town that now had the river in between.
The double name is a question of masters too. Under the fief of the Corti of Guazzora it was called Mezzana Corti, not to be confused with the village that bears that name today on the other side of the Lomellina, and in the seventeenth century it passed to the Bigli of Milan, who left it their surname. The fief ended along with feudalism, in 1797; three years later a Napoleonic decree established that the boundaries of municipalities and provinces had to follow the rivers, and Mezzana was at last detached from Gerola and placed where it actually stood, in the Lomellina. On the coat of arms the Po is a wavy band, and the stars are the hamlets.
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📅 Every year, on the second Sunday of October
On the second Sunday of October Mezzana Bigli, a municipality of 1,108 inhabitants in the province of Pavia, celebrates its patron San Giovanni Battista (Saint John the Baptist).
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.
Outside Mezzana Bigli, but an easy day trip away.
