Vellezzo Bellini

Two neighbouring villages with opposite histories. Vellezzo appears in 1116, when Pope Paschal II took under the protection of the Apostolic See the canons of the Pavian church of San Michele Maggiore and confirmed among their possessions the territories of Vileggio and Auriglosso, that is Vellezzo and Origioso: church land. Giovenzano, known from 1190, ended up instead in the hands of the great noble families of Milan and Pavia, and by the end of the sixteenth century eighty per cent of its territory belonged to the marquesses Pallavicino di Scipione, who set their residence there.

The municipality's surname comes later: in 1742 the marquis Giovanni Battista Bellini took possession of Vellezzo, and in 1864 the village added his name to its own out of deference to the feudal lord. The two boroughs found themselves in the same municipality only in January 1873, together with Origioso and Robecchino. Of the castle of Giovenzano, also called the Giardinone, the sixteenth-century building remains, a rural castle made to protect the farms and store the harvest. Three thousand and sixty-six inhabitants in the province of Pavia.