Castiglione Olona is a town and ''
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 ...
'' in the
province of Varese, in
Lombardy. As of 31 December 2015, it has a population of 7,753 inhabitants.
History
The town of Castiglione Olona rose around the fifth century CE under the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...
domain. Consequently, the Lombards entered and took possession of the village until the Castiglioni family became sole proprietor of the land around 1000 AC. The family engaged in many battles for the rule of the lands so they had walls built all around the village to protect themselves from enemies. Today only a small part of the walls near the fortress is visitable. In 1422, cardinal
Branda da Castiglione obtained the permission from
Pope Martin V to build the church of Collegiata (Santi Stefano e Lorenzo); the church contains frescoes attributed to
Masolino.
In the town, the 15th and 16th century palace of cardinal Branda now serves as a museum, still contains a chapel and a number of frescoed walls, some attributed to Sienese painter
Vecchietta.
Lombardia Beni Culturali
entry on the palace.
Twin towns — sister cities
Castiglione Olona is twinned
Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to:
* In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so;
* Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
* Twinning inst ...
with:
* Étupes, France
References
Cities and towns in Lombardy
{{Varese-geo-stub