Gambugliano

Gambugliano stands at 133 metres on the Monti Castellari, at the mouth of the Valdiezza, and its name is a Roman estate: Gambullanum comes from Cambullius, the fundus Cambullianus, with the ending in -anum that marks possession. Local tradition prefers to derive it from the dialect gran e bojon, for the springs that come out of the ground almost boiling. It appears in documents from 1207, and the Vicenza statute of 1264 lists it as an autonomous villa. In the nineteen-seventies, at a place called Il Covolo, the richest deposit of fossil moon snails in Italy was found here.

Of the castle that stood where the lane is still called Contrà del Castello nothing is left: in the sixteenth century Filippo Pigafetta still recalled Gambugliano with its castle, but afterwards it vanished, and it could be seen only on the municipal coat of arms. Its self-rule had to be won back: in 1815 the Restoration cut the Vicenza comuni from 131 to 123 and Gambugliano was attached to Monteviale, with sixty years of protest over repairs it was forced to pay for; when in 1903 the town hall was moved to Monteviale, there was a running fight over the carriage carrying off the archives and the mounted carabinieri had to be called. It became a comune again in 1905, and on 22 January 2024, after a referendum, it merged with Sovizzo.