Gavirate

Gavirate stands on the shore of Lake Varese, which once took its name. The name arrived through a chain of forms: Gavirado in a document of the Lombard king Liutprand datable to 713, Gavirago in 1191, Guairà in the tax survey of Charles V, Guirate in eighteenth-century papers. Its origin is still disputed: a Latin personal name, gravel, or a Celtic root for water. Voltorre and Oltrona al Lago, now hamlets, were separate municipalities until 1927.

That diploma tied the village to the Pavia monastery of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. Monks from Fruttuaria abbey settled at Voltorre in the twelfth century; the cloister they left, raised over a Lombard building dedicated to St Michael, is a national monument. On 20 June 1539 Charles V granted the lord of Brebbia and Gavirate the right to hold a Friday market, to make up for the raids of the French-Spanish war. The arms are used wrongly: the blazon calls for a party shield, silver sword on red and three gold roundels on blue, but usage made it per fess.