Salò

Around 15th-16th centuries, the area outside the village was called Contrada della Fornace, for “a furnace for baking curved tiles, quarry tiles and similar” located beyond the Fossa, or trench (Coriano River). It owes current its name to the presence in the 16th-19th centuries of a church dedicated to Santa Maria del Carmine and a Carmelite monastery, also outside the wall. At the end of 19th century, the church was demolished to make way for a new road, today via Brunati, and rebuilt not far from viale Angelo Landi.

This is a little medieval quarter with only 4 houses, between the Fossa and via Teatro Vecchio. The name derives from the lower Latin hera and meant aia (farmyard), still used in the Brescian and Salodian dialects. It bordered another little quarter called “del Monastero,” composed of a single house, which in turn bordered the quarter of San Giovanni on the east.

It takes its name from the fovea fortilitii; that is, from the trench that surrounded it outside the village walls. On this side the pit was so deep that the lake waters penetrated to lap the Rocca.

This medieval quarter included the houses around the church dedicated to San Giovanni Battista, probably dating back to the 7th century and completely remodeled in 1727. It is documented from the 15th century, when it was called.
Contrada di San Giovanni Capitis burgi. This was the location of the Hospital of San Giovanni, established in 1395 following a legacy of Zambellino Bolzati, whose name appears as first benefactor on a stone marker placed at the entrance of the present-day city hospital.
 

The name of the quarter, still in existence, derives from the 1646 church of Sant’Antonio da Padova in the piazza of the same name, formed from the demolition of the buildings severely compromised by the earthquake of 1901. It was the Bissone quarter in 15th century and San Marco in 16th-18th centuries, names probably derived from the viscount’s coat of arms and later from the Venetian emblem carved at the base of the Torre delle Ore, signifying the two successive conquests in 1426 in Riviera.
 

A 17th century quarter named for the statue dedicated to San Carlo, patron saint of Salò, built in 1619 on the initiative and with the contribution of the inhabitants of the Contrada di San Giovanni. It included the houses around the wide site of the statue; in the Middle Ages, this was the Pusterla quarter, consisting of 13 houses, reduced to four in the 18th century and later disappearing all together.

Called Porta della Rocca in the 15th century and Porta Nuova in 16th-18th centuries, Rocca is a nearby fort located outside the walls and also including a tower. In the 16th century the tower was called dell’Orologio or delle Ore (which later became the site of the Academy of the Unanimi), being the site where one of five public clocks was placed.

Salò is estimated to date back to 1449; the oldest entries in the Archives of the former community system provide a sufficiently detailed urban landscape of the burgum Salodi (Salaude in 1016) in the late Medieval era, although incomplete, since the properties belonging to public, civil and religious institutions were exempt from taxes and thus were not included.