Poggiridenti

Poggiridenti was called Pendolasco until 10 October 1929, and in dialect it is still Pendulasch. The new name, though, describes the place well: it is the smallest comune in the province of Sondrio, set on the Rhaetian slope above the Adda, and it is the least cold area in the whole Valtellina. Vines and olives grow here, and the dry-stone terraces hold the vineyards of the Inferno sub-zone, so called for the heat the rock gives back in summer.

The first certain records are from the twelfth century, when Pendolasco was a court of the comune of Tresivio; the Da Pendolasco family took its name from the place. In 1589 bishop Ninguarda counted about six hundred inhabitants here, and until the end of the seventeenth century plague and famine gave no respite: the first recovery is from 1706. In 1816 the pieve of Pendolasco separated from Montagna and became a comune. Then, until 1946, many people left: the vine diseases — crittogama, downy mildew, phylloxera — had ruined the farming.