Rezzato
Rezzato is a comune in the province of Brescia, Lombardy. It is bounded by the comunes of Brescia, Botticino, Castenedolo, Mazzano and Nuvolera. It is located at the foot of the Alps and a few kilometres from Lake Garda. It is the most populous city east of Brescia.
Officially founded on 12 March 1299, Rezzato has been an important religious and administrative centre since the Middle Ages. The settlement has played a significant role in Italian history, notably during Second Italian War of Independence when the Austrians led by Field Marshal Karl von Urban defeated the Sardinians commanded by Giuseppe Garibaldi in the famous Battle of Treponti. After absorbing the nearby settlement of Virle Treponti in 1928, the borough was eventually awarded city status in 2022. During World War II, as many cities in northern Italy, Rezzato suffered extensive damage, leading to post-war rebuilding that significantly shaped its modern appearance.
Thanks to its nearness to the small town of Botticino, Rezzato is commonly considered the town of marble working. The stonecutters from Rezzato have been famous since the 15th century for their creativity and their artistic way of working with Botticino marble. For this reason, Rezzato was chosen by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as the place to produce some headstones for its military cemeteries.
History
Early history
deposits, including bones of Homo sapiens, have been found in local caves, and artefacts dating to the Bronze Age have been found at Mount Peladolo. The most important prehistorical place in the area was Ca' dei Grii, a cave on the south side of Mount Regogna. During archaeological research from 1954 to 1968, objects of the Neolithic period were discovered. The cave, a refuge for prehistoric men, served also as a temporary home for a few families during the Second World War. It was destroyed in 1969 by an adjacent marble pit.Modern era
The origin of the town's name is believed to stem from the medieval "Regadium," meaning "royal court," a term used to designate the area surrounding the city of Brescia. Benedictine monks contributed to the founding of Rezzato by draining the land and digging irrigation canals on the Valverde plain.Rezzato became a free commune on 12 March 1299, when its inhabitants obtained permission from the Bishop of Brescia, Berardo Maggi, to separate the village from the Benedictine monastery of St. Eufemia.
In the 14th century, battles between the Guelph and Ghibelline city-states led to the domination of Milan and the surrounding territories by the powerful Visconti family, backed by Emperor Henry VII. In the 15th century, the western part of Lombardy came under the control of the Sforza family, while Brescia became part of the Venetian Republic in 1429. Under Venetian rule, local commerce and crafts flourished, and Rezzato gained renown for its marble. Stone cutting was the predominant industry in Rezzato from the 15th to the early 20th century.
Due to its proximity to the city and its favorable climate, many noble families built their summer residences in Rezzato. The noble Giacomo Chizzola, after withdrawing from politics, founded a school in his villa for the children of wealthy Brescia families, where they could learn Latin. It is known that the mathematician Niccolò Tartaglia gave a lesson on Euclid, while Chizzola taught rural economics. This academy may have been one of the oldest agricultural academies in the world.
Several notable figures visited and stayed in Rezzato during the 19th century: Napoleon and Garibaldi spent a night in Villa Fenaroli, while Prime Minister Giuseppe Zanardelli often came to Rezzato in the summer to spend his holidays.
On 15 June 1859, the significant Battle of Treponti took place in Rezzato, one of the battles of the Second War of Independence, fought between Garibaldi's forces and the Austrian army led by Karl von Urban.
The municipal boundaries were expanded in 1928 with the addition of the village of Virle Treponti.
Geography
Topography
Rezzato is located in the northern section of the Po Valley, immediately east of Brescia, at the foot of the Brescian Prealps.The territory consists of three large morphological macroregions: the flat bight between Monte Maddalena, the hills of Botticino and the Monte Regogna. The hilly system consists of the mountains Regogna, Fieno and Marguzzo, and two hills called Peladolo and Poggio San Martino. While the northern part of the territory is hilly, the southern area of the town is flat. The administrative comune covers a total area of.
The hills of the entire area are made up of different types of stones. The first one to be considered is the "corna" consisting of calcium carbonate and magnesium, which would have formed almost 193 million years ago. This stone is present throughout the basin between Monte Regogna and Monte Marguzzo, including Poggio San Martino. Important studies carried out on Mount Regogna allowed the identification of various fossilized forms of marine life and marine life. The age of the "corso" begins shortly after the corna one. This stone is in the lower part of Monte Regogna. Since they are very low parts, time so submerged in the sea, fossil shells of ammonite and sea urchins have been found here. The "medolo", which rises on the west side of Monte Regogna, has a much newer formation and is a stone made up of limestone marbles. The medolo is characteristic of a deep marine environment and therefore even here rivers of fossil shells emerge.
At just from the Garda Lake, it is crossed by the so-called Naviglio Grande Bresciano, an ancient canal built in 1253, from which departs a huge system of small canals now mostly covered and still today used for agriculture. Other important canals are the Rino, a torrent that coming from the mountains, crosses the historic centre of Virle Treponti and enters the Naviglio Grande at the highway of Treponti. Near the mouth of the Rino, from the waters of the Naviglio the canal Lupa flows through the countryside south of Treponti towards Castenedolo. From Botticino descends the torrent Rino Musia that crosses part of the northeast wooded area of the town and then enters the city of Brescia.
Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification, Rezzato has a humid subtropical climate. Its average annual temperature is : during the day and at night. The warmest months are June, July, and August, with high temperatures from to. The coldest are December, January, and February, with low temperatures from to.Winter is cold but snowfall is rare; it mainly occurs from December through February. Summer can be sultry when humidity levels are high and peak temperatures can reach. Spring and autumn are generally pleasant, with temperatures ranging between and.
The relative humidity is high throughout the year, especially in winter when it causes fog, mainly from dusk until late morning, although the phenomenon has become increasingly less frequent in recent years.
Precipitation is spread evenly throughout the year. The driest month is December, while the wettest months are April/May and October/November.
Demographics
Rezzato had a population of 13,564 inhabitants as of 30 April 2025.Since the end of World War II, like other places in Lombardy, Rezzato has been host to two waves of mass migration: the first, workers from within Italy; the second, immigrants from outside the peninsula. These two migrations have corresponded with two different economic phases. The first migration coincided with the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, a period of extraordinary growth based on classic industry and public works. The second immigration has taken place against the background of a vastly different economy, centred around services, small industry and post-industrial scenarios. The first migration concerned Italians, from the countryside, the mountains and the cities and towns of the South, the East or the other provinces of Lombardy.
Municipal government
Rezzato is headed by a mayor assisted by a legislative body, the consiglio comunale, and an executive body, the giunta comunale. Since 1995, the mayor and members of the consiglio comunale are directly elected together by resident citizens originally every four then every five years, while from 1945 to 1995 the mayor was chosen by the legislative body. The giunta comunale is chaired by the mayor, who appoints other members, called assessor . The offices of the comune are housed in a building usually called the municipio or palazzo comunale, which in this case is seated in the central Piazza Vantini.This is a list of the mayors of Rezzato since 1945:
* Dead in office.
Main sights
- PInAC, or Aldo Cibaldi International Gallery of Children's Art, opened officially in 1969 and it's the most important museum of the town. Today it holds more than 6,000 works of art in its facility in via Disciplina, the old deconsecrated church of St. Alexander. The building is both a gallery and an open educational centre, with training courses and experimental didactic activities. Drawings by children are still being collected, studied and catalogued today. The gallery works with schools that are interested in promoting children's art and the child's view of the world. The gallery's collections are characterised by a multi-ethnic quality. Workshops for adults are organised with nationally and internationally known artists.
- Villa Avogadro-Fenaroli: this spectacular setting lies between the villages of Ponte and Canale and was home to the noble Avogadros and Fenarolis from Brescia for four centuries. Its north wing dates to the 16th century as well as the balcony overlooking today's Scalabrini Street. A 16th-century lodge lies under the cedars of Lebanon near the gardens' boundaries. Gothic greenhouses were built in 1840, while gardens were rearranged in 1863. The villa is since 2006 a Palace Hotel.
- Bacchus' Temple: It's a small temple built by the Fenarolis in their private park on the top of the St. Peter's Hill during the 18th century, closing scenic stairs behind the Villa. In 2001, thieves deprived the temple of its pillars, leaving its dome and trabeation on the ground. The Municipality of Rezzato had it quickly repaired, recovering a symbol of the town's identity and history.
- Rodolfo Vantini School: a reason for the success of Brescian neoclassicism is certainly the use of the white Botticino's stone. However, very highly skilled carpenters and chisellers were necessary to a style leaning on perfection. This is how Rodolfo Vantini had the idea to set up a school in Rezzato to train these workers. The school opened in 1839 in the Town Hall. Now the school is in the south of the town in a modern building. Vantini was also one of the best architects in Brescia.