History of Busto Arsizio

[10] By decree of Cardinal Charles Borromeo, on April 4, 1583,[11] Busto Arsizio, then under the rule of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti, was detached from the Vicariate of Seprio and placed at the head of what until then had been the Parish of Olgiate Olona.

The origins of the activity that made the town a major textile center date back to the Middle Ages: in 1375 "one can hear a loom in almost every house," as testified a few centuries later by historian Pietro Antonio Crespi Castoldi in his history of Busto Arsizio (De Oppido Busti Relationes).

[14] Due to the intense activity of the entrepreneur Enrico dell'Acqua, it acquired the dual profile of cotton and mechanical town in the late nineteenth century, thus securing its economic well-being.

Busto Arsizio, therefore, would have constituted for a long time a Ligurian enclave immersed in the Insubrian land and would therefore have had only modest contact with those Celtic populations that arrived in various waves from central Europe by crossing the Alps.

[39] From the first half of the century is the news[40] of a monastic community of Humiliati Sisters[41] located in the Contrada Basilica,[42] while the town developed economically due to the textile production of fustian and bombazine.

[43]In 1287, after yet another reconquest, the archbishop of Milan Ottone Visconti ordered the destruction of Castel Seprio, and Busto Arsizio thus rose to borgo status,[44] an appellation for towns with a market and fortification.

[46] Given the generosity and religiosity of the people of Busto Arsizio, part of the growing wealth of the town was consecrated through benefices to the churches of St. John the Baptist, St. Michael the Archangel and St. Mary of Piazza.

[49] In 1375 "almost in every house one hears a loom," as witnessed a few centuries later by historian Pietro Antonio Crespi Castoldi in his history of Busto Arsizio (De Oppido Busti Relationes).

[49] Six years later, in 1440, the first tribunal was established, granting the town's first podestà in loco the power to "settle any civil and criminal question or dispute, sum or value, and to adjudicate and apply pecuniary and corporal punishment up to and including extreme torture.

[56] The town thus went through a period of intense splendor even under Sforza's rule, especially from an artistic and cultural point of view, despite the wars, devastation, looting, famine and plagues that accompanied Lombardy during the 16th century.

[64] In 1573, when Gabriele de' Turati was "consul" of Busto Arsizio, Senator Pietro Antonio Marliani became interested in the town again and beat the offers of competitors at the Royal Chamber.

[92] During the reign of Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa, there was resistance from the population of Busto Arsizio[93] to radical reforms, especially in the face of laws that suppressed religious congregations with devotional and contemplative purposes.

On January 29, 1797, a part of the population of Busto Arsizio rebelled against Napoleon's army to free some Austrian prisoners,[95] and later in the year there were anti-French demonstrations, in a pro-Austrian vein;[96] new riots also broke out in 1798, in the wake of those that occurred in Luino.

[100] Local industry, which had seen promising development under Austrian rule, was severely hampered by Napoleon Bonaparte's economic policy, which prohibited the import of materials and hindered the export of textiles to favor French trade.

On December 7, 1813, on news of the possible arrival of German troops, new anti-French riots broke out, probably organized by gangs outside the city; French repression led to the arrest of 9 local men.

After three days, an Austrian intervention easily restored order, supported by some local notables, including Giovanni Azimonti Gallora, Carlo Cesare Bossi and Paolo Tosi.

[103][104][105][106] In 1814 the Kingdom of Italy finally collapsed, partly as a result of Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in 1813; in 1815 Busto Arsizio, along with the rest of Lombardy and Veneto, was annexed to Habsburg territory.

From December of the previous year, the railway connection with Milan was also activated:[112] the town's first station came into operation and the Sant'Anna kindergarten was founded.From the mid-19th century modern industry began to play an increasingly important role, so much so that in a few decades Busto Arsizio became the so-called "Manchester of Italy"[113] (in 1862 it already had 51 firms, mostly spinning or weaving mills).

[134]As far as Busto architecture is concerned, the first Art Nouveau villas began to appear in the early years of the new century, the main features of which are the break with the rigid symmetry of the past and the use of geometric or floral ornamentation as an expression of compositional freedom.

In 1915, the year Italy entered the war, the Società Anonima Ferrovie Meridionali Sarde was founded in Busto Arsizio with the aim of building a narrow-gauge (950 millimeter) railroad in southwestern Sardinia, according to a project approved by the government and dating from 1911.

[137][138] According to a town legend, one factor contributing to the decision was the behavior of the Busto Arsizio residents during a visit by Benito Mussolini to the city, on which occasion the Duce was ignored by the majority of the citizens.

Although Busto Arsizio, unlike the neighboring areas and Milan, was spared from bombing from the fall of 1944 because it was the headquarters of the so-called Chrysler mission that maintained contact between partisans and the Allies,[147] the city suffered three fighter-bomber raids that occurred in the summer of 1944.

[148] The final insurrection order left on the morning of April 25, 1945, from the Church of St. Edward, Busto Arsizio, thanks to the parish priest Don Ambrogio Gianotti, in which a partisan nucleus had been established.

In a few months the buildings and facilities were upgraded, and on November 21 of that same year, in the presence of Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, ministers and undersecretaries, the new Malpensa airport began operations with the landing of a four-engine plane.

[153] A second important initiative was promoted in 1951 by banker Benigno Airoldi, industrialists Antonio Tognella, Carlo Schapira, and Enrico Candiani, mayor Giovanni Rossini, and parliamentarians Facchinetti, Morelli, and Tosi, who created the International Textile Exhibition, which was demolished in 2009.

At the same time, in the 1950s and 1960s, the "Giuliani e Dalmati" neighborhood was built near Borsano, so named because it was intended for the city's reception of the many Italians exiled from the lands of Istria, Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia after World War II.

In 1970, the municipalities of Busto Arsizio, Gallarate, Legnano, Nerviano and Samarate founded ACCAM (Associazione Consortile dei Comuni dell'Alto Milanese) to design, organize and manufacture waste disposal plants.

In 1984[156] the old and now dilapidated[157] prison (located in the center of town) was closed and replaced by a new, more modern facility.During the 1980s, another priest figure was intrinsically linked to the city of Busto Arsizio and its people: the one of "a martyr of charity and love," Don Isidoro.

A former teacher at the Liceo Classico Daniele Crespi and director of the Altomilanese edition of the weekly newspaper "Luce," he was among the founders of the "Marco Riva" association in Busto Arsizio, which began as a listening center and became, in 1987, a community for drug addicts.

In 1997, upon completion of the renovation of the front parallelepiped of the former Bustese Spinning Mill building, the Museum of Textiles and Industry of Busto Arsizio was set up in which old looms and other machinery were collected.