Monticelli Pavese

In the Middle Ages Monticelli lay south of the Po, inside a wide bend of the river. In the tenth century the empress Adelaide gave it to the monastery of San Salvatore in Pavia, which held the lordship of it for centuries, until 1796. In 1164 Frederick the First assigned it to the jurisdiction of Pavia along with other places near Piacenza; bitter fighting followed, and the peace that settled the matter gave Monticelli to Piacenza. Then, towards the end of the Middle Ages, in 1467, the river changed its course, and the village found itself on the northern bank — where it still is.

That did not change whose it was: Monticelli went on belonging to the Piacenza country. The comune as it now exists was founded only in 1816, after the Congress of Vienna, within the Lombardo-Veneto kingdom and the province of Pavia, and it was assembled out of three pieces that Napoleon had detached from the Piacentino in 1798: Monticelli proper, until then part of Sarmato; the lands of Nizzolaro, taken from Rottofreno; and the exclave of Gabbiane, which had belonged to Calendasco. Until 1863 it was called simply Monticelli, and the Pavese was added later, probably to tell it from Monticelli d'Ongina, just over the border. It is the lowest-lying comune in the whole province of Pavia.