Terrain model of Lomello

Lomello is a small town on the Po plain in north-west Italy, not far from Pavia. It lies within a flat plain (the Lomellina) formed during the last glaciation, which has been extensively modified by the levelling of fields for rice cultivation. The town itself, like others in the area, lies on a dosso, an eroded mound of earlier glacial formation, which protrudes from the extremely flat surroundings. It has long been important in the communication system of the area; in the Roman period it was a mansio on the road from Pavia to Turin, and its importance continued until the Middle Ages. There are surviving fragments of a Roman city wall, remains of a baptistery from the Lombard period (also commemorated in street names such as ‘via Gundaberga’), and from the eleventh century the outstanding church of Santa Maria Maggiore, described as ‘one of the most important edifices of the 11th century in Europe’ (Porter, 1917). The survival of these monuments may have been helped by Lomello’s reduction into a small agricultural town, preceded by the decline in the fortunes of the family of the palatine count. The only major modifications were reconstruction works undertaken in the 1940s (Blake, 1983).