Until 1863 the village was called simply Galliate; it was then that the adjective Lombardo was added to it, and since then it has been Galliate Lombardo. It is one of the smallest comuni in the province of Varese, a little under four square kilometres squeezed between Azzate, Daverio, Bodio Lomnago and the provincial capital, and it belongs to that basin they call the Valbossa, together with seven other nearby villages. The coat of arms, granted in 1969, is quartered and brings together four images that tell the place: a poplar on an azure ground, a Guelph-merloned tower on a grassy hill, a blue sheet of water on a silver field and a chestnut tree on a red field — the trees, the water and the fortification.
The village's history can be read clearly in the figures of its population. In 1751 the inhabitants were 240 and by 1805 they had fallen to 179: so few that in 1809, with the Napoleonic administrative reorganisation, the comune was suppressed and annexed to Daverio. Having regained its autonomy, Galliate began to grow again and by the middle of the nineteenth century had nearly doubled: 387 inhabitants in 1853 and 413 in 1859, on the eve of unification. Today it has about a thousand, that is four times as many as two centuries ago, because being close to Varese has done the rest. The parish church is dedicated to saints Gervasius and Protasius, the two Milanese martyrs whose relics were found by saint Ambrose.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Galliate Lombardo
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