Loria

The coat of arms of this comune is an unsolved mystery. It carries three little flames, and they recall the so-called «incendiary fires»: in 1754 the village was the theatre of a never explained natural phenomenon which, over the spring months, caused more than eighty fires of houses, farm huts and hedges. It was not the first time: the thing had been appearing since the early seventeen hundreds in the nearby villages of Ramon, Godego, Rossano and Galliera, and it had drawn the attention of the scholars and the learned men of the time, among them Scipione Maffei, who tried to find a rational explanation for it. The comune put those flames on its shield by royal decree of 23 June 1927, and they are still there.

The name too is uncertain. Loria seems to derive from the Latin personal name Aurelia, and the initial L could be the trace of an article, l'Oria; the link with the via Aurelia, which certainly gave its name to Loreggia, is not obvious, because that road does not cross the village: more likely it is a prediale, that is the name of the woman who owned the land. Nor is it clear whether the Aurilia named in 972 in a diploma of Otto I is Loria or Loreggia; if it were Loria, that would be the oldest attestation of the name. Then come the forms Lorgna in 1175, Lorlea in 1221, Lorlia in 1223 and Lorgla in 1269, which suggest an old palatal pronunciation. As for history, Loria and all its frazioni appear in the reckoning of the many properties of the Ezzelini, drawn up after the defeat of that house in 1260. The church of San Bartolomeo, built between the sixteen hundreds and 1777, keeps a canvas by Volpato da Bassano, two marble angels by Marchiori, a Deposition attributed to Giovan Battista Lazzarini and a ceiling frescoed by Noè Bordignon in 1884.