Introductory Panel
The Romanization of the large territory extends between the Ticino river to the east and the Sesia river to the west. This occurred gradually between the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 1st. Following the conquest by Caesar, Lomellina was located in a crucial sector that connected the Po valley and Gaul.
2 km from Cozzo, in 1802, a milestone was found, now preserved in the Leone Museum in Vercelli, and reproduced here in the Gallarati Scotti Museum in real size. Above this column you can read the name of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 BC), followed by the numeral of the Latin figures LVIII, which indicated the distance between Cuttias and Mediolanum (identified as “caput viae”).
Other finds of this emperor were found in Sommo Lomellina and Lomello.
During the Early Middle Ages, with the ceased ability of the central power to guarantee the necessary road maintenance works and the progressive change in the hydromorphological structures of Lomellina, we witnessed the gradual abandonment of the ancient Roman road artery, replaced by alternative routes that followed the bumps rivers.
However, the local tradition of the Middle Ages has preserved in the names of “via Regina” and “via Pavese Selvatica”, the memory of some sections of the ancient Roman road, which still survive today as long straights traced by country roads that cross the Lomellina countryside between the courses of the Terdoppio and that of the Agogna and clearly recognizable in aerial and satellite photos.