Skip to content

Mandello del Lario

Torre del Barbarossa, Maggiana

Visit duration
30 min – 1 h
Booking
Not required
Area
Lecco Branch
A flowering meadow with a tree at Maggiana, the tower small in the distance among the houses and mountains under a blue sky.Alberto Micheli · CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Maurizio Moro5153 · CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Ysogo · CC BY-SA 4.0

1 / 3

A flowering meadow with a tree at Maggiana, the tower small in the distance among the houses and mountains under a blue sky.

Alberto Micheli · CC BY-SA 3.0

Why go

The Torre del Barbarossa is a medieval square tower in the centre of Maggiana, above Mandello del Lario.

Its name recalls the tradition that Frederick I stayed here in 1158 as a guest of the Mandelli family; a plaque found in 1828 bore that year. The fortress controlled the Strada Ducale della Riviera, now followed by the Sentiero del Viandante, and routes towards the Val Meria and Piani Resinelli. It retains its pointed doorway and vertical arrow slits; other windows were added from the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, its owner Francesco Alippi added the terrace. Owned by the municipality and managed by the Gruppo Amici di Maggiana, it houses the ethnographic museum, with objects and photographs of local life and work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  • In the museum, panels with old photographs recall the Giüdee procession, which went from Maggiana to Crebbio on Good Friday.
  • The terrace at the top of the tower was added by Francesco Alippi, its owner in the nineteenth century.
  • The old rooms include one with traces of a painted ceiling below the terrace.

Highlights

  • The pointed windows and arrow slits
  • The medieval gate and the small entrance courtyard
  • The museum's household and working objects

Getting there

  • Maggiana lies above Mandello. You can take the train to Abbadia or Mandello and walk up along part of the Sentiero del Viandante; by car you drive up from Mandello, and there is parking in the hamlet.

Accessibility

  • The tower's rooms are spread over several floors. The toilets are on the ground floor.

On the map

Explore the lake
Mandello del LarioAbbadia LarianaTorre del Barbarossa, Maggiana

© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL

What's on nearby

Events within a few kilometres, on now or coming up.

See all

Nearby: places, experiences, services

Distances as the crow flies.

Sources and credits

Verified at source9 Oct 2026Museo Torre di Maggiana — avvisoopens in a new tab

Sources and credits

Verified at source9 Oct 2026Museo Torre di Maggiana — avvisoopens in a new tab