Castello Cabiaglio

The village gave itself an older name. Until 27 November 1939 it was simply Cabiaglio; on that day the municipal rectorate resolved unanimously to adopt Castel Cabiaglio, holding it more historically correct for the village's position at the mouth of the Valcuvia, and from 7 August 1940 the present name became official. In the historical documents that Castello hardly ever appears: the village is always just Cabiaglio. Yet a 19th-century plaque on a house in the old centre reads «Castel Cabiaglio, provincia di Como, Distretto di Cuvio», and a manuscript of 1821 carries a seal reading Comune di Castello Cabiaglio. As for Cabiaglio, the etymology most followed derives it from Castrum Vallis, the castle of the valley, by way of Ca' Vallis and Ca' Biallis.

The lion in the arms belongs to a family. When in 1450 Pietro Cotta became feudal lord of the Val Cuvia, he sought alliances with the valley's families of notaries and jurists; at Cabiaglio these were the Leoni, settled there since the 13th century, and they became the local emanation of feudal power. In the parish archive there is a printed sheet of 1700 showing the village in flames behind and, in front, Sant'Appiano, the patron, with the Leoni arms beside him: the family stands for the village in civil matters as the saint does in spiritual ones. In the middle of the 19th century, becoming a comune, Cabiaglio kept the castle and the lion in its emblem. In 1889 about ten Roman tombs of stone slabs were found, of the 1st century.