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Then and now

Nineteenth-century views of the lake, each beside a recent photograph taken from the same spot or close to it: Bellagio, Menaggio, Como, Villa Pliniana and the Isola Comacina.

Bellagio from Tremezzo

The mountains, the wooded hill and the villa on top are the same. On the slope between the village and the woods the photochrom shows meadows and terraces; in the photograph it is covered in trees and cypresses.

Full entry

Drag the line between the two pictures, or use the arrow keys, to move from one to the other.

Bellagio on the far shore of the lake, below the wooded hill with the villa on top and the grey rock faces of the mountains; in the foreground, the red and green leaves of a garden.
A late nineteenth-century photochrom: Bellagio on the far shore of the lake, below a wooded hill with a white villa on top, and rocky mountains in pink tones behind.
1890–1900 · Photochrom by Photoglob, ZurichPhotochrom Print Collection · Public domain2016 · PhotographRay in Manila · CC BY 2.0

Where the two pictures were taken from the same spot, they are laid one over the other and compared by moving the line between them; the others stand side by side.

The colours of the photochroms were added in printing, starting from a black-and-white negative.

The other views

The prints in the stories