In 1512 the people of Pieve del Cairo, led by Rinaldo Zatti, freed a prisoner of the French: cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, legate of pope Julius II with the army of the Holy League, captured at the battle of Ravenna. The next year that cardinal became pope under the name of Leo X, and in 1516 he settled the debt by granting the village two jubilees a year, on the first Sunday of June and on 8 September. In the church there is still the canvas in which Leo X displays the bull, and in palazzo Isimbardi a hall frescoed in 1666 tells the story of the battle to free him.
The rest is the story of two villages that became one. Cairo was a Gallo-Roman settlement with an important Christian basilica, and from that basilica — the pieve — the name comes. Barbarossa destroyed the place and in 1164 assigned the territory to Pavia; in 1250 the Pavia records distinguish a Cayre Vegium, the old one, from a Cayre Iuvene, the young one. The castle was razed again by Facino Cane in 1404. Cairo Lomellino came back inside the comune only in 1890; and since 1921 the number of inhabitants has halved.
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📅 Every year, on the second Sunday of September
On the second Sunday of September Pieve del Cairo, a municipality of 2,108 inhabitants in the province of Pavia, celebrates the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.
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 Pieve del Cairo, but an easy day trip away.
