Isola Vicentina

This village changed its name because of the post. Until 1905 it was called Isola di Malo: that «di Malo» came from the Republic of Venice, which in a moment of reordering and assessment for the division of taxes had merged the comune into the vicariate of Malo. After the annexation of the Veneto to Italy the commissariat of Malo was suppressed and Isola came to depend only on the province, so the old bond began to be badly seen. On 12 November 1902 some inhabitants presented a petition to the town hall for a change of name, explaining that letters often went on towards Malo or Monte di Malo and then came back, lengthening the times considerably. On 27 May 1903 the town council said yes; on 13 September a second petition asked that the new name be specified, and three proposals were circulating in the village: Isola and nothing more, Isola del Cengio in honour of the rocca, or Isola Vicentina. On 21 September 1904 the council chose Isola; the prefectural authority objected that it lacked precision and suggested Isola Vicentina, confirmed by the council on 10 November 1905 and signed by Victor Emmanuel III on 17 December.

The year 1905, here, was a double one: on 18 November Giacomo Rizzi was elected mayor, the first in more than a hundred years who could say he had been born, raised and was living in Isola. Before him the town council was made of noblemen who did not live in Isola — they were in Vicenza — and whose only interest in the village was their vast landholdings: count Antonio Branzo-Loschi between 1867 and 1876, count Alvise Biego between 1883 and 1901, then the marquess Giuseppe Roi. As for the name, «Isola» very probably comes from a physical fact: the territory, once washed also by the Leogra, was subject to floods that covered the fields leaving uncovered only islets of earth and gravel, and the documents indeed speak of Communitas Insularum, in the plural. According to Mantese, instead, the origin is historical: at the beginning of the tenth century king Berengar granted bishop Vitale of Vicenza the court de Sala exactly where the village stands today, and from a distortion of that «in Sala» would have come insula.