Vespolate

The name has many explanations and none that settles them; the most credited takes it from Nespoletum, a place planted with medlars. On the arms, approved in 1930, the medlar tree is there indeed, and beneath it the crozier and the sword crossed, standing for the bishop's power.

The first document naming Vespolate is of 989. In the eleventh century the village was the hub of the lower Novarese, because its pieve of San Giovanni Battista administered the whole stretch between Novara and Mortara and between the Agogna and the Ticino, as far as Vigevano. Beside the borgo stood Ponella and Stodegarda, two places that no longer exist.