Cardano al Campo

Until 1864 the town was called simply Cardano; a decree of Victor Emmanuel II added «al Campo» to set it apart from its namesakes. The addition made sense: a Roman camp had stood here, and the via Severiana Augusta ran past, the consular road climbing from Mediolanum to Lake Maggiore and the Simplon Pass. On the name itself scholars are still split between the thistle, the root kar for «stone», and the Roman cardo, the axis that with the decumanus laid out a camp.

The arms repeat it: on a green base three silver tents with red pennons, the camp, and above them a red castle of three towers under an eagle, the arms of the Cardano. That family, first lords of the village with the Castiglioni, gave Milan archbishop Milone in 1187 and counts the scientist Gerolamo Cardano among its descendants. The woods, still wide, were partly felled under German occupation for the Malpensa military airfield.