Albettone

The Bisatto canal was dug around the twelfth century by the Vicentines to carry off the waters of the Bacchiglione to the damage of the Paduans, and it crosses the whole territory of Albettone. In an age when waterways counted more than roads, that canal was the local economy: along it went to the cities the limestone of these hills, from which hydraulic lime was made. To control the traffic, towers were built along the Bisatto, and one still stands, restored: the Colombara, which under Venice served as the watchtower of Albettone's port. The village is named for the first time in 983, in a privilege of the bishop of Vicenza; and there was a bishop's castle here, exempted from the fodro tax by imperial diplomas of Otto III in the year 1000 and of Frederick II in 1220, later destroyed in the wars between Vicenza and Padua. Tradition places it on the hill still called Castellaro.

At Lovertino there is a little church that an archaeologist called «the gem of the Berici»: Saints Vitus and Modestus, documented as early as 753, with the small apse left as it was and the rest rebuilt around the year one thousand; in 1965 a violent storm brought down its roof and left only the walls standing. And then there is a date the village cannot round off. During the second world war four families of Polish Jewish refugees were interned at Albettone: Geltner, Guen, Rubinfeld, Lublinskj. After 8 September 1943 the order of arrest reached the carabinieri, and it was carried out on 10 December: nine people, six adults and three children, were taken to the provincial concentration camp of Tonezza del Cimone and at the end of January 1944 deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed. Only the Guen couple were saved, having been transferred to Cortona the previous February.