Mornico Losana

The village stretches along a hill that divides the valley of the Verzate torrent from the Val Sorda, and its name is made of its two largest quarters, Mornico and Losana. Mornico appears among the places that in 1164 the emperor Frederick the First granted to the city of Pavia, all of them fortified and with an administration of their own. An older document, of 1001, names a place called Morenise: but that paper is probably a forgery, though a contemporary one, and in any case the place it names is not this one — it is a settlement that has vanished, in the territory of Voghera.

The Pavesi put Mornico in the squadra of Montalto, which was held in fief by the Belcredi, and it was they who built, or more probably rebuilt, the castle: it served as an outpost towards the plain for the main castle of Montalto, which is clearly visible from here. The comune followed the fortunes of that fief, passing to the Strozzi, then to the Taverna, then back to the Belcredi, who in the eighteenth century also took the title of marquises of Mornico. The arms are a crowned gold lion on red, approved by the town council in 1950. From the top of the hill, below the castle, the whole plain of the Po opens out.