ILLUSTRIOUS MEN. – We should recall Bl. Cristoforo Maccasoglio of the Franciscan convent of the Grazie; Bl. Anselmo degli Anselmi of the Franciscan convent of S. Francesco, also in the city; Bl. Caterina degli Ingrami, a religious of S. Teresa; Bl. Caterina Naj of Gambolò and Bl. Pacifico of the Franciscan convent of the Grazie; Giovanni Andrea Bussi, ALGERIA (v.); Francesco Maggi, Uberto and Pier Candido Decembrio, men of letters and companions of Filargo at the Ateneo pavese; Bernardo Ferrari, painter; Mercadante, Zerbi, Antonio Cagnoni, Lorenzo Perosi, musicians; Msgr. Pietro Barbieri, known for his great organizational activity.
BUILDINGS AND MONUMENTS. — Of interest, besides the Cathedral, is the square with the Ducal Palace and its Bramante-style tower, erected by Lodovico il Moro, who was also responsible for the construction (around 1486) of the villa-castle of La Sforzesca, 3 km outside V., on land granted by the community and soon brought under cultivation; an armed clash between German and Piedmontese troops took place there on 21 March 1849. Also noteworthy are the fifteenth-century churches of S. Francesco and S. Pietro martire.
The territory of V. includes Lomello (Laumellum), from which the region took the name Lomellina. It is mentioned as early as the Roman period, when it was also a municipium; geographers identify it as a mansio on the road from Pavia to Turin; funerary inscriptions from the imperial period attest to its survival. Paolo Diacono speaks of « Lomellum castrum » as the place where Queen Teodolinda met her husband Agilulf (Hist. Langob., III, 35). In the Carolingian period it was made a county, of which a Cunibert is recorded as a palatine exile from the court of Pavia in 996; a dynasty established itself in the castrum and later divided into several branches. The fortress was destroyed by the people of Pavia (1140–45). Lomello preserves the two ancient churches of S. Maria maggiore and S. Michele, with Romanesque remains. The ancient Baptistery is excellently preserved (v. Chierici, Il battistero di Lomello, in Atti della Pontif. accad. d'archeologia, 3ª serie, rendiconti, 17 [1940–41], pp. 127–37).
Breme (v.), the Congregation of the Canons Regular of Mortara (Mortarienses) was important in the territory of V. S. Croce, built outside Mortara and consecrated by Urban II on 14 September 1096; destroyed in 1556, it was rebuilt within the city in 1573 and is now reduced to a parish church. The Congregation became extinct at the end of the eighteenth century and from its earliest period had numerous churches affiliated to II. — Vedi t.V. CXLV.