Castelletto sopra Ticino

Castelletto stands where the Ticino leaves Lake Maggiore, on the upper Novara plain, on the border with the Varese district and inside an amphitheatre of morainic hills. The position drew people from the Bronze Age onwards: around 1950, at Glisente, a necropolis of the Canegrate culture came to light.

Between the seventh and sixth centuries BC the largest proto-urban centre of north-western Italy stood here, eventually covering the whole promontory in the river's bend. This was the time of the Golasecca culture, named after the place just downstream: the necropolises excavated in the area show that the inhabitants spoke a Celtic language and that goods bound across the Alps passed through here.