Greco is a district ("

quartiere A (; plural: ) is a territorial subdivision of certain Italian towns. The word derives from (‘fourth’) and was thus properly used only for towns divided into four neighborhoods by the two main roads. It has been later used as a synonymous ...

") of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, part of the Zone 2 administrative division, located north-east of the city centre. Before being annexed to the city of Milan (in 1923) it was an independent

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

, named Greco Milanese. As "Greco" is the Italian word for ''Greek'', it has been suggested that the name refer to an old Greek settlement in the area; nevertheless, scholars tend to believe that the place was actually named after the Greco family that used to live here (at least until the 12th Century). The architecture and urban layout of Greco still reveal its origins as a small rural " borgo". Several old " cascine" (the typical country house of Lombardy) are still in place and have been restored to meet modern standards while retaining their original overall style.

History

A settlement in Greco is reported at least since

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

times. In the

middle ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

Greco was an independent ''comune''; the place is mentioned in

Alessandro Manzoni Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel '' The Betrothed'' (orig. it, I promessi sposi) (1827), generally ranked among the maste ...

's '' The Betrothed'' as a small group of '' cascine''. In 1753, Greco merged with Segnano. The resulting comune was named "Greco Milanese" in 1863. In 1923 Greco was annexed to Milan along with 12 other comunes. The boundaries of Greco changed over time; the train station of Greco Pirelli, for example, has this name because in 1910, when it was built, it was inside the boundaries of the Greco Milanese comune; nowadays, it is considered part of the Bicocca district rather than the Greco district.

References in popular culture

The area of Greco has been used as a setting in a number of Italian

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

production and

movie A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s, such as ''Romanzo popolare'' (1974), '' La piovra'', (1987), and ''Sotto il vestito niente 2'' (1988). One of the best known cascine of Greco, Cassina de' Pomm (in

Lombard language Lombard (native name: ,Classical Milanese orthography, and . , Ticinese orthography. Modern Western orthography. or , Eastern unified orthography. depending on the orthography; pronunciation: ) is a language, belonging to the Gallo-Italic famil ...

"Farmhouse of the apples") appears in several scenes of Maurizio Nichetti's movie '' Volere volare''.Stazione Centrale e dintorni: alla scoperta di Greco
(in italian)

Notable people

Clara Petrella Clara Petrella (28 March 1914 in Greco Milanese – 19 November 1987 in Milan) was an Italian operatic soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, an outstanding singing-actress nicknamed the "Duse of Singers". Born in a mus ...

( soprano) and Adriano Celentano (actor, singer, showman) were born in Greco.

Footnotes

External links

The rural borgo of Greco
(in Italian) {{Districts of Milan Districts of Milan Former municipalities of Lombardy