Pontecurone

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town hall  Pontecurone
corso P. Togliatti, 50

phone/fax number
+39 0131 885211  /  0131 885217

e-mail
protocollo.pontecurone@reteunitaria.piemonte.it  


Pontecurone is located on the left bank of Curone torrent, along the former state road n° 10 connecting Tortona to Voghera and bordering the province of Pavia.
It is an ancient village with Roman origin and its structure is characterized by a typical rectangular layout with perpendicular streets.
Pontecurone borders the following municipalities: Casalnoceto, Casei Gerola, Castelnuovo Scrivia, Rivanazzano Terme, Tortona, Viguzzolo, and Voghera.
The first historical information dates back to 958 BC but the historiographical sources concerning Pontecurone are very few. We know for sure that the Ligurian were owners of this area in the 7th and 6th centuries BC and that the Roman settlements gave the village the typical urban layout of the Roman ‘castrum’.
In 1155 the emperor Federico Barbarossa came to Italy, besieged Tortona and then he went to Pontecurone, which at that time was member of the council of Tortona. Afterwards both towns were destroyed by Barbarossa. During the 14th century Pontecurone was fortified by the Visconti Family and from 1482 onwards was ruled by the Sforza family until it passed to Giacomo Medici.
In 1635 it was the site of a battle in which Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza and allied to the French, defeated the Spanish troops under Caspar Azevedo.

main sights
- 13th century Town hall, with the civic tower.
- the small parish church of Santa Maria Assunta; it was built around 1300s on the site of an ancient Romanesque church, with several frescoes and recently refurbished chapels. The single façade is decorated with an indented cornice; the interior is divided into three naves and there are decorations of great interest, such as frescoes from the Lombard School and others with figures of saints attributed to Manfredino Boxilio.
- the church of San Giovanni Battista, dating from the 12th century.
- the gothic window situated in Via Emilia 21, known as ‘Barbarossa window’, because it is the only element left of the house where Barbarossa dwelt when Pontecurone was his headquarters
- oratorio San Francesco, Maltese cross, saint Orione birthplace

notable people
- Don Luigi Giovanni Orione: he was born in Pontecurone on the 23rd June of 1872 and can be considered as one of the most important representative characters of the Christianity of the last century. Of humble origins, he was named after Saint Aloysius Gonzaga and Saint John the Baptist. He was baptized the next day by Don Michele Cattaneo, a parish priest of Pontecurone. The young Luigi grew up according to the rules of the Christian religion and started to develop a vocation to charity during his stay in Voghera with ‘Sacerdoti di San Francesco’ (Saint Francesco’s Priests). This vocation became more and more deep during his three-year stay with Don Bosco and his collaborators and during the hard seminarian apprenticeship. He gained the attention of Saint John Bosco, who numbered him among his favourite pupils. Since the age of thirteen, Luigi suffered from health problems. However, three years later, at the age of sixteen, he was present at Don Bosco's death in Turin in 1888. Immediately upon his death, Luigi's ailments were miraculously cured.
In 1892, the 20-year-old seminarian opened his own oratory, and the following year he started a vocational school for the poor. He was ordained a priest on 13 April 1895. From 1899 onwards Don Orione started to gather a group of priests and clerics that were to become ‘Piccola Opera della Divina Provvidenza,’ or the ‘Little work of the Divine Providence’. In 1903 the group received the imprimatur of the bishop, and it became what is still called to this day the ‘The Son of Jayson’.
In 1908, Don Orione went to Messina, Sicily and Reggio Calabria, both of which were devastated by respective earthquakes. He dedicated three years to help those in need. At the end of the First World War Don Orione began to expand his work. He founded schools, farming colonies, and charity organizations—always with a special emphasis on helping orphans and the poor. Over the next two decades, he started foundations throughout Italy and the Americas.
In the winter of 1940, Don Orione started to suffer from serious cardiac and pulmonary ailments. He went to Sanremo to recover, but not without a tinge of regret. Luigi Orione died here surrounded by fellow priests of his Orionine order.
On16th May 2004 he was proclaimed Saint.
Today, the charitable organizations begun by Saint Luigi Orione are still operating in abundance throughout the world.
- Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: ideologue, poet, editor, and founder of the ‘futurist movement’. He was born in Alessandria d’Egitto in a family with staunch bonds in Pontecurone. Marinetti is widely known as the author of the ‘Futurist Manifesto’, which he wrote in 1908. It was published on the front page of the most prestigious French daily, Le Figaro, on 20 February 1909.

typical products: onions growing, favoured by the sort of ground, started in Pontecurone in 1948. During the ‘Festival della cipolla’ (Onion Festival) on the first Sunday in September, the onion-based soup represents the perfect combination between this vegetable and the local tradition. In addition to onions, sugar beet and potatoes growing, the farmers are undertaking to crop tomatoes and nuts. 

patronal day: Biagio: 3rd Sunday in July
hamlets Brugna