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Stories from the lake

Lake timeline

Two thousand years of the lake in order of date: from the Roman road along the western shore to the first steamboat, from the fall of the Isola Comacina to the Olginate dam. Each date leads to the story that tells it and to the place where it happened.

Dates
82
Stories
27
Periods
6
Como harbour with the jetty and moored boats, the cathedral dome on the right and the Brunate hill behind the town.
Photochrom Print Collection · Public domain

13dates

Antiquity

To the 5th century · 2 dates

  1. 2nd or 3rd century

    The Romans use Musso marble

    The sixteen columns of San Lorenzo in Milan, about seven and a half metres tall and taken from Roman buildings of those centuries, are of white Musso marble. The main quarries were on the spur where the Medeghino's castle later stood.

    Place: MussoStory: The stone of the lake

  2. 5th or 6th century

    The baptistery of Gravedona

    A baptistery with a mosaic floor and an octagonal basin for baptism by immersion is built at Gravedona. The Romanesque church of Santa Maria del Tiglio, in bands of light and dark stone, later rises over its remains; the baptistery came to light in the excavations of 1953.

    Place: Santa Maria del TiglioStory: The Comacine masters

    The banded tower of Santa Maria del Tiglio at Gravedona, floodlit at night.

Middle Ages

6th century to 1449 · 2 dates

  1. 607–617

    Agrippinus founds an oratory at Piona

    Agrippinus, Bishop of Como, builds an oratory dedicated to Saint Justina the martyr on the Olgiasca peninsula and prepares his own tomb there. A stone pillar kept at Piona records it; a small community, probably of hermits, was most likely already living there.

    Place: Piona AbbeyStory: The monks' lake

    The Piona inlet, the bay enclosed by the peninsula, the Alps behind.

  2. 1252–1257

    The cloister of Piona

    Prior Bonaccorso de Canova, from Gravedona, has the abbey's cloister built at his own expense, as two inscriptions record. The capitals, each one different, carry hooked leaves, eagles with spread wings and small heads; the builders' names are unknown.

    Place: Piona AbbeyStory: The Comacine masters

    The Romanesque cloister at Piona abbey, its paired colonnettes around an inner lawn.

Renaissance and foreign rule

1450–1699 · 3 dates

  1. The Medeghino settles at Musso

    Gian Giacomo Medici, known as the Medeghino, installs himself as castellan of the stronghold on the Sasso di Musso and turns it into a fortress and a palace. With an armed flotilla he raids the lake's trade and its shoreline villages and rules the upper lake.

    Place: Sant'Eufemia, MussoStory: The Medeghino, lord of the lake

    The little church of Sant'Eufemia on the Sasso di Musso on a late-winter day: on the left the cracked plastered wall of the church and the arched porch on two stone columns, with its roof of stone slabs; a hiker with a backpack and poles walks across the paving; beyond a dry-stone wall and a sloping meadow with a tree in dry leaves and two picnic tables, the lake stretches towards a hazy horizon, with the mountains of the far shore, a snow-capped peak and, on the shore to the right, the houses of a village.

  2. Charles V makes the Medeghino Marquis of Musso

    Now in the emperor's service, the Medeghino is granted the marquisate of Musso over many lands around the lake, Como excepted, with full jurisdiction and the right to mint coins. The coat of arms of the municipality of Musso bears the crown of that marquisate.

    Place: MussoStory: The Medeghino, lord of the lake

  3. The castle of Musso is dismantled

    After the war that began in 1531 against the Grey Leagues, the Swiss cantons and the Duke of Milan, the Medeghino comes to terms with the duke: he gives up Musso, Lecco and the other lands he holds and receives the marquisate of Marignano. The castle on the Sasso is dismantled, and the Swiss obtain a promise that it will not be rebuilt.

    Place: Musso Civic History MuseumStory: The Medeghino, lord of the lake

Twentieth century

1900–1999 · 6 dates

  1. The first high-voltage three-phase railway

    The lines from Lecco to Colico and Chiavenna and from Colico to Sondrio switch to electric traction, with three-thousand-volt overhead lines fed by the power station at Morbegno. They are the first in the world to run trains on high-voltage three-phase alternating current.

    Place: ColicoStory: When the railway reached the lake

    The electric locomotive E.430.001 on display at the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan: a black engine with sloping bonnets and the cab in the middle with its windows, lamps, the buffer beam and the bogie frames in red, and on top two red poles for collecting the current; in front, a panel headed “Locomotiva elettrica”; beside it a black steam locomotive, and around them the hall with its roof of glass and steel.

  2. The fort at Colico is armed

    On the Montecchio hill, where the roads coming down from the Splügen, Maloja, Bernina, Stelvio and Tonale passes meet, the fort is ready, with four 149-millimetre guns under revolving steel domes. The guns have stayed where they were.

    Place: Forte Montecchio NordStory: The Cadorna Line on the Lario

    The fort's four steel domes seen from above, in a row on a concrete roof divided into squares: a gun barrel sticks out of each, and above them runs a strip of earth and dry grass closed by a wall.

  3. Monks return to Piona

    After centuries of absentee abbots and private owners, a group of Cistercian monks arrives from Casamari and takes possession of the priory, which the businessman Pietro Rocca has given to their congregation. A community of monks has lived at Piona ever since.

    Place: Piona AbbeyStory: The monks' lake

    The abbey's Romanesque cloister with its paired columns.

  4. To Switzerland along the smugglers' paths

    After the armistice many disbanded soldiers cross the San Jorio pass above Gravedona to seek refuge in Switzerland. Refugees use the smugglers' paths too: during the war Ticino and the Mesolcina take in about twenty-six thousand soldiers and twelve thousand civilians, but many are turned back.

    Place: Gravedona ed UnitiStory: The smugglers' lake

  5. Partisans stop Mussolini at Dongo

    On the upper lake, partisans of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade stop a German column heading for Switzerland and recognise Benito Mussolini among its passengers. After his capture they take him to Palazzo Manzi in Dongo, which houses the Museum of the End of the War.

    Place: Museum of the End of the WarStory: The Cadorna Line on the Lario

    The neoclassical front of Palazzo Manzi, Dongo's town hall, with the museum entrance.

  6. The fort at Colico fires its only shots in war

    The German column that had handed Mussolini over to the partisans at Dongo is stopped at Colico under the threat of the Montecchio guns, which fire five rounds, none on target. The next day, at the Isolabella hotel, the Germans sign their surrender.

    Place: Forte Montecchio NordStory: The Cadorna Line on the Lario