Castellazzo Bormida

The town was called Gamondio, and under that name it appears in a diploma of 938, in which queen Bertha receives from the emperors Hugh and Lothair the royal court of Gamondio. In 1154 the Arab geographer al-Idrisi put it on his map of Italy and described it as a large and populous city, walled, with busy markets; some historians doubt he meant this place.

Then Gamondio, with Marengo and Bergoglio, founded Alessandria, and ended up losing its name to it: from the fourteenth century Gamondio meant the territory and Castellacium the built-up part, but soon the old name stayed with the new city, where it is a quarter, and all the rest got Castellacium, from the ruined fortifications scattered over the comune.