Soncino

Soncino sits on the Oglio river at the point where the provinces of Cremona, Brescia, and Bergamo meet, a position on the Lombard frontier that kept the town militarized through the medieval centuries and explains the walls and the fortress alike. Inside the circuit, the town's religious center predates its military architecture: the parish church at the heart of the centro storico served the borough from the twelfth century, while the frescoed church nearby belongs to the later Renaissance layer of building. The fortress itself, raised in brick rather than stone, took only two years to complete and is unusually whole for its age.

The other thread running through the town is the press, worked by a family who later carried the town's name across Europe when they dispersed, leaving behind the house where they worked and, in it, the object that made the town briefly a center of Hebrew printing. What Soncino adds up to, then, is a frontier garrison town whose walls and castle speak to centuries of defense, cut through by one short episode of printing that gave it a different kind of reach entirely.

From Milan (BGY), about 44 minutes by car.

Verona (VRN) is about 1h 23m away.

By car from the centre of Brescia 38 minutes.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Milan, Verona or Venice?

Coming by train into Brescia? Soncino is about 37 minutes away by road.

Every town within reach of Milan airport.