The ideal workers' village
On the banks of the Adda river, in the municipality of Capriate San Gervasio, Crespi d'Adda is one of the most complete and best preserved examples of a company town in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. It was founded in 1878 by the textile industrialist Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, who built a cotton mill here, and developed by his son Silvio, who had studied similar villages in England.
The Crespi family built a whole town for their workers around the factory: identical houses with gardens for the families, arranged in orderly rows, a school, a church, a copy of the one in Busto Arsizio, a hospital, a wash house, a theatre, a sports field and even a cemetery dominated by the family's monumental mausoleum. The owners lived in a castle-villa, and the managers in larger houses. The workers had a house, health care and education, but the whole of their life depended on the factory. The mill closed in 2003, but the village is still inhabited, and walking along its streets is like going back to the industrial age.
Tip: visit with the guided tours organised by the local association; the cycle path along the Adda passes through the village and offers lovely river views.
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