Vedano Olona

Until 1863 the village was simply Vedano; the river's name came later, and it fits, on a terrace above the left bank of the Olona, between the Roman roads from Milan and from Como to Varese. Medieval documents survive: in 1121 the men of Vedano went to help their neighbours at Binago, under attack from Como, and were beaten and put to flight along with them.

Two houses of Umiliati, wool-working religious, go back to the tenth century, and by the thirteenth and fourteenth their name meant good cloth. Around 1622 the Odescalchi began buying up Vedano until they owned most of it; the family that gave the Church Pope Innocent XI left its palace, now the town hall, and the lamps of its arms, which passed into the municipal shield to stand for the six hamlets. Arrested under Fascism, don Luigi Monza came back in 1937 and opened the first house of La Nostra Famiglia, for children with disabilities.