San Mauro di Saline

San Mauro di Saline was called simply Saline until 1867, when the name of its patron was added, Saint Maurus bishop of Verona — San Moro in the local dialect. For the first name there are two explanations: the Latin salina, which meant brackish and therefore barren ground, or the piére assaline, the flintstones, because flint was plentiful in these parts. The village is one of the Thirteen Communities of the Verona mountains, the islands of Cimbrian speech: in Cimbrian it is called Salàin, and its population grew in the thirteenth century, when landowners called in German-speaking shepherds and woodmen to work these lands.

On the mountain above the village, at a little under nine hundred metres, stands the church of San Leonardo, of 1388, built over an older chapel beside a monastery: it is Romanesque, with three naves and three apses, and has a portico that served to shelter pilgrims. In front of it stands an eighteenth-century obelisk. The feast of San Leonardo, in September, was the festival that closed the mountain grazing season, when the animals came down: there was a cattle fair too, and around the church you can still see the rings set in the wall to which the beasts were tied.