Caronno Varesino

Until 1940 this village was called Caronno Ghiringhello. Its coat of arms tells who ruled here and where the water runs: the blue bar is the Arno stream, which crosses the territory; the serpent comes from the Visconti, who held it in fief; and the lion holding up a castle is the emblem of the Castiglioni, who here held the rank of vavasours. In the Napoleonic period the comune came to take in Castronno and Morazzone as well.

The territory is all hills, woods and fields, squeezed between two streams, and it belongs to an inter-municipal park built around three watercourses: the Rile, the Tenore and the Olona. The Rile rises right here, in the Campolungo valley, at the place called Stribiana. Not far off is the area of the Bagnella, named for the amount of water it holds underground — enough to form several ponds at the surface. Today's built-up area grew from the joining of four old settlements.