Calto

Calto lies in the upper Polesine, on the bank of the Po, and its name may come from a Lepontic word meaning refuge, stronghold, defence — the equivalent of the Latin arx — though in dialect calto is also a dug ditch. The village is documented very early: in 754 it appears in the inventory of the promise of Quierzy, by which Pepin the Short guaranteed pope Stephen II the return of the lands of the Exarchate. Of its original centre, however, nothing is left: the Po took it, and the spot is now floodplain.

In 1189 a bull of Clement III records the church of Cadalto, oriented to the east, towards Constantinople, and with a hospitale attached for pilgrims heading to Rome or the Holy Land. In 1252 a concordia notes that Azzo d'Este had turned the village into a military post, taking it from the friars: from then on Calto was frontier, customs house and Este garrison. The plague of 1630 killed more than seventy people, and the survivors vowed to Saint Roch that they would build him a larger church. That church was badly damaged by the earthquake of 20 May 2012 and was usable again in 2016.