Giacciano con Baruchella
Exploring the Municipality of Giacciano con Baruchella in Veneto
Hi! Today I will tell you about a municipality in the province of Rovigo, in Veneto, called Giacciano con Baruchella. This scattered municipality, which has 2,039 inhabitants, is located west of Rovigo and the municipal seat is in Baruchella, a center still distinct but contiguous to that of Giacciano.
Physical Geography
The municipal territory of Giacciano con Baruchella is completely flat and includes not only the inhabited centers that give the municipality its name, but also the hamlet of Zelo. It is surrounded by the Tartaro-Canalbianco-Po di Levante river and the canals Scolo Malopera and Fossa Maestra, which partly occupy the beds of two historic routes of the Adige River, called the Malopera route and the Castagnaro route.
Origins of the Name
The toponym of Giacciano comes from the word "ice" and refers to the fact that in correspondence with watercourses, during winter, it was possible to cross the frozen river using rudimentary sleds. The toponym of Baruchella, on the other hand, must be traced back to the Cisamini della Fratta family, called Baruchello, who are indicated as local landowners in the first documents found. It is not clear, however, whether the family gave the name to the inhabited center or vice versa if it was the family that took its name from the center.
History
The current municipal territory of Giacciano con Baruchella, like the whole Polesine, has been deeply influenced by the presence of various watercourses that have periodically flooded it following numerous routes and floods. The Camaldolese monastery of the abbey of Vangadizza stimulated its first reclamation works after the great Malopera route of 1438, granting vast plots of land to noble families with the Livello system (contract). This is how the first inhabited nuclei began to develop.
Among these families, the Cisamini della Fratta or "Baruchello" are remembered, Ferrara nobles residing in Legnago, who received the investiture in 1471 and erected the first church dedicated to San Pietro Martire, later reconstructed in 1528. The subsequent historical events led to the dispute over these lands between the Duchy of Ferrara and the Republic of Venice.
The border disputes only ended in 1569, almost a century after the peace of Bagnolo in 1484, thanks to an intervention of the Pope, which led to the signing of a further convention between Ferrara and Venice. Based on this agreement, Baruchella belonged to the Serenissima, while Zelo and Giacciano remained with the Duke of Ferrara. Subsequently, from 1598, the territory passed to the Papal States.
Of particular importance in the following periods were the reclamation works undertaken by the noble Bolognese family of the Bentivoglio d'Aragona. It was the Bentivoglio who also built, between 1669 and 1672, the parish church of Giacciano, adorned later with funerary plaques, among which stands out the bas-relief of the "Dolente", attributed by some, perhaps erroneously, to Antonio Canova. The Bentivoglio also built, in 1764, a grand rural complex, consisting of a palace surrounded by rustic buildings and barns, with a masonry fence all around the estate, used as a hunting reserve.
Conclusions
So, here is the history and characteristics of Giacciano con Baruchella, a municipality in Veneto that is no longer unknown to you! If you want to visit it and discover more about the Municipality, do not hesitate to take a look at giaccianoconbaruchella.it, the official website of the Municipality of Giacciano con Baruchella.
