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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

11dates

Antiquity

To the 5th century · 1 date

  1. AD 61 or 62

    Pliny the Younger is born

    The nephew of Pliny the Elder, who later adopts him, is born at Novum Comum, ancient Como. In his letters he describes the spring that rises and falls several times a day, the one at the Pliniana, and two villas of his on the shore of the Lario, which he calls Tragedy and Comedy.

    Place: ComoStory: The two Plinys of Lake Como

Middle Ages

6th century to 1449 · 2 dates

  1. 643

    Rothari's Edict names the Comacine masters

    Two chapters of the law of the Lombard king Rothari deal with the magister commacinus and settle who must pay for the damage if a house built by a master collapses. The name most probably means builders and stonecutters from the Como area, but its meaning is not settled.

    Place: ComoStory: The Comacine masters

    The Isola Comacina from above: a tongue of wooded land in the blue lake, with meadows and a white building towards the point and a strip of gravel on the shore; behind, the far shore with houses along the water, and at the bottom roofs and green branches.

  2. Urban II consecrates Sant'Abbondio

    Outside the walls of Como, along the old Via Regina, the Benedictines have been rebuilding the church of Sant'Abbondio since 1010: a nave and four aisles and twin bell towers beside the apse. Pope Urban II, passing through Como, consecrates it.

    Place: Basilica of Sant'AbbondioStory: The Comacine masters

    An arched window in the pale stone wall of the apse: the frame is carved with dense interlaced bands, two slender columns carry the inner arch, the jambs alternate white and grey blocks and the glass is patterned with circles; above runs a sawtooth band beneath an interlaced frieze.

Renaissance and foreign rule

1450–1699 · 2 dates

  1. 1457–1486

    The façade of Como Cathedral

    From 1452 the cathedral works use white marble from Musso, which becomes their main material. The façade, begun in 1457, is completed in 1486 with the rose window.

    Place: Como CathedralStory: The stone of the lake

    The Duomo's marble apses and dome under a September sky.

  2. By 1498

    The two Plinys on the cathedral façade

    The brothers Giacomo and Tommaso Rodari complete the two aedicules on either side of the main doorway: Pliny the Elder sits on the left, Pliny the Younger on the right. In 1578, at the height of the Counter-Reformation, the statues survive an attempt to remove them.

    Place: Como CathedralStory: The two Plinys of Lake Como

    The aedicule of Pliny the Elder on the front of Como cathedral, protected by a glass case: the marble statue seated in a niche between two carved columns, a book on his knee; below, two reliefs between small caryatids, a garland held by putti and a stone tablet with a Latin inscription; around it, the grey marble blocks of the façade.

Eighteenth century

1700–1799 · 1 date

  1. 1711–1753

    The Carloni brothers remake the church at Scaria

    The brothers Diego and Carlo Innocenzo Carloni remake the church of Santa Maria for Scaria, their home village, with stucco and frescoes. They are among the artists of the Val d'Intelvi who work all over Europe: Carlo Innocenzo also paints in Ljubljana Cathedral and in the palaces of Vienna.

    Place: Santa Maria and Museum of Sacred Art, ScariaStory: The Comacine masters

    The nave with walls and vault covered in stucco and frescoes, down to the high altar at the end.

Nineteenth century

1800–1899 · 2 dates

  1. Shelley looks for a house at the Pliniana

    From Milan, Percy Bysshe Shelley writes to his friend Thomas Love Peacock that he has been to Como to look for a house. The landscape he likes best is that of Villa Pliniana, half in ruins, which he and Mary hope to obtain; the negotiations come to nothing.

    Place: Villa Pliniana, TornoStory: The writers' lake

  2. Bellini at Moltrasio

    The Cantù and Turina families rent Villa Salterio at Moltrasio, where Giuditta Cantù carries on her affair with Vincenzo Bellini. These are the years in which the composer writes La straniera and La sonnambula; a plaque on the villa's façade records it.

    Place: Villa Salterio Erker, MoltrasioStory: The musicians' lake

    The three-storey lilac villa on the road, with grey shutters, the decorated pediment at the top and a plaque on the front; on the left a balustraded terrace, on the right the arch spanning the road.

Twentieth century

1900–1999 · 3 dates

  1. Hitchcock shoots his first film on the lake

    For ‘The Pleasure Garden', his debut as a director, Alfred Hitchcock sets the heroine's honeymoon on the lake. The Villa d'Este hotel, the Isola Comacina and the Civera bridge at Nesso can all be recognised.

    Place: NessoStory: The lake on film

    The Ponte della Civera at Nesso: a single-arched stone humpback bridge over green water, leading to stone houses with red doors and shutters; a few people are crossing it; on the left, a wall covered in ivy.

  2. The Novocomum, Como's first rationalist building

    Giuseppe Terragni completes the Novocomum, an apartment building with a curved volume on the corner that the people of Como nickname ‘the Ocean Liner'. Between the wars Como becomes one of the centres of Italian rationalism.

    Place: NovocomumStory: Palazzo Terragni, rationalism beside the cathedral

    The Novocomum at the crossroads, its rounded corner and balconies under a blue sky.

  3. Terragni completes the Casa del Fascio

    Fifty metres from the apse of the cathedral, Giuseppe Terragni completes the Como headquarters of the National Fascist Party, designed in 1932: a square of about thirty-three metres a side, faced in white marble, with no cornices or decoration. The building has since taken the name Palazzo Terragni.

    Place: Palazzo Terragni (former Casa del Fascio)Story: Palazzo Terragni, rationalism beside the cathedral

    The front of Giuseppe Terragni's Casa del Fascio in Como, seen square-on from the piazza, with a person in a yellow raincoat.