The history of Gottolengo, an Italian municipality located in the Lower Brescian area not far from the borders with the provinces of Cremona and Mantua, can be traced back to as early as the 3rd millennium BC, although the present town was born only in Roman times and then developed over the following centuries.
In early medieval times the history of the town was closely linked to the presence of the Benedictine monastery of Leno, then Gottolengo came under the control of powerful local families and, later, of the Republic of Venice.
With the advent of Napoleon, Gottolengo was part of the Cisalpine Republic and, after its fall, of Lombardy-Venetia; in 1861 it was finally united to the nascent Kingdom of Italy, following its subsequent historical events.
Antiquity
The territory of Gottolengo began to be populated from about 2000 B.C., as evidenced by the inhabited settlements brought to light on the so-called "Castellaro" (toponym composed of the Gallic terms cashr and teiher, meaning fortification), an area at the southern edge of the present urban center, consisting of a modest plateau surrounded by water and marshes. That terracing, which was easily defensible, favored the settlement of stable communities devoted to agriculture and animal husbandry and capable of practicing archaic forms of weaving. In addition to rudimentary lithic objects, the finds unearthed at the site also include specimens of furnishings, pottery and weapons, both made of stone and bronze.
For reasons not yet well understood, probably due to plagues or invasions and wars, the Castellaro was gradually abandoned since 1000 B.C. in favor of an area a little further north, where the present town of Gottolengo now stands. According to an ancient legend, an underground tunnel would have ensured connections between the two localities even in case of armed clashes or raids. At the end of the 5th century B.C. or at the beginning of the following century,As evidenced by the numerous archaeological artifacts (weapons especially) found in this area and now preserved, at least in part, inside the renovated "tower house." the Celtic people of the Cenomani settled there, who were expanding in the Lower Brescian area and who based their economy on ironworking, agriculture and livestock breeding. This ethnic group, residing in scattered villages, began to give its own names to localities in the area and was the first to introduce forms of coinage in the area.On the subject one can refer to the studies of Ermanno Arslan and, in particular, Saggio di repertorio dei ritrovamenti di moneta celtica padana in Italia e in Europa e di moneta celtica non padana in Italia (testo aggiornato on line ). The Cenomani then came into contact with other peoples: the Insubres, Veneti and, in the second half of the 3rd century B.C., with the Romans. The latter implemented a policy of integration toward the Celts (whom they called Gauls). The territory of Gottolengo came under their final hegemony only in 196 BC, after a coalition of Romans and Veneti defeated the Cenomani forcing them into an alliance with the victors.
The Romanization process (introduction of the Latin language, Roman law, and various political and military institutions) culminated in 49 BC with Caesar's granting of Roman citizenship to the Cenomani and other peoples of northern Italy. Under the control of the municipium of Brixia, a city falling under the X Regio, Gottolengo did not change its agricultural vocation while it adapted its way of life to that developed in different parts of the empire.
The unearthed finds present numerous testimonies and traces of the Roman presence: coins (of particular importance is a collection discovered in 1900 in a cultivated field south of the town), pottery, artifacts, and epigraphs, including the so-called Lapid of the Quattuorviri (the four supreme municipal magistrates) from the 1st century AD. Following is the text of this inscription:
It refers to a Roman tower of which nothing is known (perhaps it was located in a municipium such as Brixia or Cremona), while for the plaque itself it has been assumed that it was already walled up in the old parish church, later torn down and rebuilt in the 18th century still reinserting the inscription outside the new apse.
Middle Ages
Early
At the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Gottolengo experienced the domination of various barbarian populations, including that of the Lombards, who, after conquering the territory in a not entirely peaceful manner, left their mark on it and incorporated it into the Duchy of Brescia (second half of the 6th century). Desiderius, the last Lombard ruler and a native of Brescia, with the help of his wife Ansa had founded the women's monastery of San Salvatore (later Santa Giulia), in 758 had a men's abbey erected in the neighboring town of Leno, entrusting it to the Benedictines. Having arrived from Montecassino, the monks imprinted not only on the Leno Abbey, but on the whole territory of Lower Brescia that depended on it, a fervor of religious, cultural and economic rebirth by initiating a vast work of land reclamation.
With the fall of Lombard power and the establishment of Frankish hegemony in Italy, the prestige of the monastery further increased thanks to the protection accorded to it by Charlemagne (and later his successors), a fierce defender of Christianity. From then on, the constant policy of the abbots of St. Benedict of Leno was to maintain or procure the favor of emperors and popes, so that over the centuries, through special contracts (bulls or diplomas), the monastery went on to increase its power and possessions.
Gottolengo was then a curtis belonging to the abbey, and the form of economy practiced there was precisely the manorial economy, based mainly on agricultural activities and livestock breeding; almost all the peasants worked in the employ of the monks, and few were those who owned plots of land. On the other hand, it was precisely the vastness and continuity of the estates that enabled the Benedictines to implement the great hydraulic and agrarian reclamation works that characterized their activities at the turn of the millennium.
When in the first half of the 10th century an invading people, the Hungarians, began to threaten villages and monasteries, lands and crops of the prosperous Brescian plain with raids and plundering, the monks of Leno decided to fortify the small village of Gottolengo by building palisades and terrepleins around it. Subsequently, the Benedictines faced a new and different danger, the one posed by the increasingly powerful Canossa family and the claims it was making on a part of the Leno Abbey's possessions. The abbots, by exercising patience, diplomacy and authoritative support, were able to resolve the various disputes in their favor.
Late
In 1078, in an acute phase of the struggle over investitures, Artuicus (or Arduicus), a man close to the Church of Rome, became abbot, whose loyalty was rewarded by Pope Gregory VII with an important bull that, in addition to minor prerogatives and territorial expansions for the monastery gave its abbot the power to establish markets, build castles, make direct contact with any bishop in Italy (he previously had to use the Brescian diocese as an intermediary) and consecrate churches. Loyalty to the pontiff did not prevent the rector of the monastery from maintaining good relations with the Germanic emperors as well, thus ensuring a period of peace within the territory and the maintenance of property to the abbey. Thereafter, the election of abbots was guided in various ways by the Germanic emperors.
Things changed radically with the accession to the throne of the new German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and his authoritarian policies. In 1158, he descended on Italy for the second time, destroyed and sacked the Leno Abbey, forcing the abbot to take refuge in Venice and abandon the monastery at the mercy of the imperial troops, then he conquered Brescia, a Guelph city, and put his advisers in charge of it as he had already done with other municipalities in the region. The reaction of the Lombard cities, united and reorganized into the Lombard League, led twenty years later to the defeat of Frederick I at the Battle of Legnano (May 29, 1176). Barbarossa was forced to enter into a treaty of non-belligerency with his opponents in Venice and to restructure the abbey of Leno, which was granted further diplomas and bulls that reconfirmed the possessions it held, including the village of Gottolengo, which had suffered greatly from the invasions and looting of the imperial soldiers.
Reinstated in full power, the abbot was able to choose his own vassals to whom he would assign the various estates owned by the monastery and from whom he would collect tithes and taxes. This sometimes led to the inevitable emergence of disputes and conflicts, not only of a legal nature, both between monks and feudal lords and between the monastery and the peasants. Of particular importance in this regard was the popular uprising that broke out in 1205, during which Abbot Onesto had to reconquer the Abbey by resorting to arms.
The most deleterious consequences for the Benedictines came from the legal clash, which had already arisen during the communal age, with the increasingly powerful bishop of Brescia, who demanded to subject to his jurisdiction the lands belonging to the monastic community. Eventually the Lenese monks, worn out by continuous struggles and seriously in debt due to the spoliations they had suffered, were forced to surrender many of their properties to the diocese of Brescia. The ancient abbey entered a phase of slow but steady decline that, in the following centuries, would lead it to misery, abandonment and finally demolition (1783).
In the meantime Gottolengo had become a free rural municipality of modest size, at first under the hegemony of the abbots, then under the control of the bishop and the Brescia municipality. In the 13th century it was the scene of a bloody struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines and endured much plundering; the war between the factions escalated in the following century, when the small lowland village was also put to the test by plagues, famines and even an invasion of caterpillars and locusts. It was also affected by the political events of the municipality of Brescia, first transformed into a signoria and later annexed by the Visconti into their state. During the 15th century, the municipality of Gottolengo was long disputed between the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice. In 1427, in fact, the Brescian territory was occupied by the Venetians who, led by Carmagnola, drove out the Visconti, settling until 1438, when Niccolò Piccinino's Milanese took over the village, but the Visconti interlude was brief and two years later the Venetians returned to Gottolengo. Later the borough was taken back by the Duchy, but with the Peace of Lodi (1454) both the Bergamasque and Brescian areas were recognized as belonging to the Maritime Republic.
During the War of Ferrara, the town of Gottolengo was also involved in the conflict: it was in fact conquered by the Gonzaga, the enemies of the Venetians in 1483, and later retaken by the latter; the hostilities ended with the re-confirmation of the supremacy of the Serenissima in the Brescian territory.
Modernity