Gerenzano

Gerenzano lies on the high plain north of Milan, close to Saronno. The Roman road from Mediolanum to Lugano passed through the place, then called Giranzanum. A church is recorded here in a document of 712, and two parchments of the twelfth century show it as a curtis of the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia. A third, dated 713 and signed by the Lombard king Liutprand, grants Gerenzano to that abbey: it is a forgery, one of the so-called Liutprandine fakes.

The parchment of 1178 makes the monk Giovanni de Villarasca warden of the abbey he had led as abbot the year before: he had backed the imperial side, and after the peace of Venice he was demoted and exiled here. Outside the village stands the small Gothic church of San Giacomo, whose Romanesque bell tower is older than the church itself. The arms are quartered gold and red around a single letter G.