Monteviale

On the arms granted by decree of the President of the Republic of 19 August 2016 there is an elm, and the elm is no longer there. In the square at Monteviale there used to be a centuries-old one; it had fallen sick, and on the first of September 1920 it was cut down, and as it fell it destroyed the wayside shrine beside it, which was rebuilt the following year. The village chose that tree as its own sign, that is, something that can no longer be gone to see and that, what is more, went away breaking something. Nor is it the first time: the previous coat of arms also had the elm, reduced however to the trunk alone, crossed by a fluttering white scroll with the words Monteviale d'oro. First the whole tree, then the trunk, then the memory of the tree.

The comune, for that matter, is young: it has existed since 1906, when it broke away from Gambugliano. The name, by contrast, is old and uncertain. The two most followed readings are Latin and lead in different directions: Mons Vitalis, in which case there is a person's name behind it, perhaps a local family; or Mons Vitis, the mount of the vine, that is a hill full of vineyards — and the vineyards, together with the olive groves, are still on the territory, because the soil of these low hills west of Vicenza is fertile and well exposed. The parish church of Santa Maria Assunta stands where the castle was, built in the tenth century and later destroyed: nothing remains of the castle, but the road that turns around the church is still called via Castello, and that turn is the perimeter of something that has vanished. Not far away is Villa Loschi Zileri, with its frescoes and its park. The village feast is the sagra dell'ottava, held shortly after Easter.