Parona

At Parona there is a biscuit that holds the village together. It is called the Offella, the recipe was invented at the end of the nineteenth century and has been jealously guarded ever since: only those who make them know it, and it has never been revealed. Since 1969, on the first Sunday of October, the Offella has had its own festival, with music, a funfair and a parade of decorated floats.

For the rest Parona is a village of the northern Lomellina, between the Agogna and the Terdoppio, often called Parona Belga so as not to confuse it with the one near Verona. It was assigned to Pavia in 1164 by a diploma of Frederick I, then passed to the Tornielli, the Visconti Borromeo, the Stampa and finally the Archinto: in 1707 Filippo Archinto was named marquis of Parona, and his descendants held the fief until feudalism was abolished, in 1797. To Lombardy, though, the village came late: it was Savoyard, and entered the province of Pavia only in 1859.