Nave (

Brescian Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic dialect spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are ...

: ) 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 Brescia The Province of Brescia ( it, provincia di Brescia; Brescian: ) is a Province in the Lombardy administrative region of northern Italy. It has a population of some 1,265,964 (as of January 2019) and its capital is the city of Brescia. With an ...

, in Lombardy,

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 ...

. Neighbouring communes are, from the south and clockwise:

Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Ise ...

, Bovezzo,

Concesio Concesio (Brescian: ; locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy in Trompia valley. It is located north of Brescia and south of Sarezzo. Concesio is located in the lower Val Trompia, at the foot of Monte Spin ...

Lumezzane Lumezzane (Brescian: ; locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy. With a population of 22,255 () it is one of the largest towns in the province of Brescia. It is situated in the Gobbia Valley, which is a side va ...

Caino Caino (Brescian: ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy located in the Valle del Garza. It is bounded by other communes of Nave and Lumezzane. Geography Caino is distant almost 12 km (7,46 mi) from Brescia. It ...

, Serle and Botticino. It is located in the Garza valley. The origin of the name Nave is not certain. Some maintain it comes from ''nava'' (cfr. English ''navel'') meaning the valley basin in which Nave sits, others think it is a contraction from Latin ''nam vallis'', wide valle

Another possibility is it comes from Latin meaning ship (cfr. Italian ''

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

'' with the same meaning) due to the overall shape of the town when seen from the Maddalena mountain. Notwithstanding this hypothesis being held as improbable, the coat of arms of the town sports a ship on it. Originally Nave consisted in a series of loosely connected urban sections: Nave proper (Nave centro, ''Nàe''), Campanile (''Kampanìl''), Cortine (''Kurtìne''), Dernago (''Dernàk''), Mitria (''Mìtria''), Monteclana (''Monteklàna''), Muratello (''Möradêl'') which eventually connected together following urbanization. This is reflected by the fact that Nave does not have a main square, which is very uncommon for an Italian town. Nave is also known as the Iron valley due to the many iron and steel factories that characterised the environment. In one of its urban section - Cortine - is still possible to visit "Villa Zanardelli", a former house of the President Giuseppe Zanardelli. A

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 fami ...

tongue twister plays on ''Nàe'' being both the name of the town and a past tense of the verb ''nà'' (English ''to go'', Italian ''andare''): ''en dè ke nàe a Nàe go 'nkontràt el prèt de Nàe, 'l ma dìt endò ke nàe me go dìt ke nàe Nàe'', which can be translated as: I was going to Nave when I met the priest of Nave, he asked me where I was going and I told him I was going to Nave.

Sources

Cities and towns in Lombardy {{Brescia-geo-stub