Torrebelvicino

The name is made of three pieces. Torre comes from the Latin turris: here the Romans had a watch and signal tower, in sight of the summit of Monte Castello and of other high points down the valley. Pieve is medieval, from the Latin plebs, and means the church to which the whole Val Leogra answered: an inscription in the porch of the old church of Pievebelvicino recalls that the ancient people of the valley, once they had become Christian, found here the baptistery, the altar and the tombs. Belvicino, finally, most likely means fine view, after the ridge from which one takes in the landscape. The inhabitants call themselves turritani. In 910, to face the Hungarian raids, the emperor Berengar I gave this curtis to the bishop of Vicenza, who filled the territory with castles: the one at Belvicino stood on the cone-shaped hill, and the church at its foot was linked to the outposts by an underground tunnel.

Two things remain from those wars. In 1202 bishop Pistore, while trying to retake the castle of Belvicino from count Uguccione Maltraversi, was shot dead by the occupiers' arrows beneath its walls; after that the Maltraversi lost their fiefs. And a crooked boundary remains: Cangrande della Scala, out of political convenience, allowed Rovegliana to spread onto the Leogra side of Monte Civillina, so that the border crosses the watershed and comes down almost to the Manfron district. Centuries of litigation were not enough to straighten it. On 20 September 1311, meanwhile, the men of Pieve and of Torre met the nobleman Marcabruno Da Vivaro and obtained full recognition of their rights over their land.