Pozzuolo Martesana
A Journey into the History of Pozzuolo Martesana
Hello friends! Today I'm taking you on a discovery tour of Pozzuolo Martesana, a municipality in the metropolitan city of Milan, Lombardy. Also known as "Pozzoeu" in Milanese dialect, the municipality has 8,558 inhabitants and is home to one of the facilities of the Ferrero confectionery group.
History
Let's begin our journey into the history of Pozzuolo with a leap back in time to the Roman era, when an imperial tomb was discovered in the Bisentrate fraction, and up to the 7th century, when some Lombard-era burials were found during works for the BreBeMi highway.
The first mention of the name dates back to 1044, in a parchment preserved in the capitular archive of the Bergamo Episcopal Curia, relating to a sales contract stipulated in the vico Pociolo. In 1191, the name "Pozolo" appears in another parchment related to the sale of some land in Pozzuolo Martesana.
From the 13th century, Pozzuolo was part of the Gorgonzola parish and, during the Napoleonic era, Bisentrate and Trecella were also added to Pozzuolo, followed by Bellinzago Lombardo in 1811. In 1864, the municipality took on the official name of "Pozzuolo Martesana", to distinguish it from other localities with the same name. In 1869, Bisentrate and Trecella were definitively added to Pozzuolo Martesana.
Monuments and places of interest
Among the most important monuments of Pozzuolo Martesana, we find the Church of the Nativity of Mary, built in 1572 and rebuilt in the 19th century. The church of San Francesco, on the other hand, dates back to the 13th century and is dedicated to Francis of Assisi, one of the first Franciscan settlements in Lombardy; the church, originally dedicated to Santa Maria, was suppressed in 1769.
Environment
Pozzuolo Martesana is a historic locality of the Martesana and the Parco dell'Alto Martesana. However, the municipal territory has been affected by profound urban and landscape transformations since 2012, especially for the construction of a DHL logistics facility, a quarry for borrowings, and infrastructures related to the BreBeMi and Tangenziale Est Esterna di Milano construction sites. These works have caused the subtraction of extensive areas of cultivated land, and the felling of dozens of trees, some of which were centuries-old and of interest to the local "PLIS" and protected by the Parco dell'Alto Martesana.
Society
Pozzuolo Martesana has undergone a particular demographic evolution, going from 670 inhabitants in 1751 to over 2,000 in 1811, after the annexation of Bisentrate, Trecella, and Bellinzago Lombardo. Currently, the municipality has 8,558 inhabitants and, according to ISTAT, in addition to the inhabited center of Pozzuolo Martesana, it includes the fractions of Bisentrate and Trecella and the inhabited localities of Cascina Piola, Cascina Porro e Rotta, Cascina San Giuseppe, and Cascina Solcia.
I hope that our journey into the history of Pozzuolo Martesana was interesting for you! See you next time!
