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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

6dates

Renaissance and foreign rule

1450–1699 · 2 dates

  1. 1565–1570

    Cardinal Gallio's villa at Cernobbio

    Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, born at Cernobbio, has a summer residence built on the lake to a design by Pellegrino Tibaldi. In 1815 it is bought by Caroline of Brunswick, who names it Villa d'Este.

    Place: Villa d'Este, CernobbioStory: The century of the grand hotels

    Villa d'Este's long pale front on the shore, with yellow awnings on the ground floor and Cernobbio's houses on the hill behind.

  2. A villa around the Pliniana spring

    Count Giovanni Anguissola, governor of Como, buys the land at Torno where the spring described by Pliny the Younger rises, and builds the villa there in three years. In the loggia two inscribed slabs carry Pliny's letter, in Latin and in Italian.

    Place: Villa Pliniana, TornoStory: The two Plinys of Lake Como

    The yellow villa on the shore below the rock face, with the white waterfall coming down through the greenery behind it.

Eighteenth century

1700–1799 · 1 date

  1. Joseph II shelters at Blevio

    Caught by a storm on the lake, the Emperor Joseph II takes shelter in a house on the shore at Blevio. In the second half of the nineteenth century the ballerina Maria Taglioni retires there, and the villa takes her name.

    Place: Villa Taglioni, BlevioStory: The musicians' lake

Nineteenth century

1800–1899 · 3 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.

  3. The year of the grand hotels

    Villa d'Este, at Cernobbio, becomes a hotel. In the same year the Frizzoni family's neoclassical villa at Bellagio opens as the Grand Hotel Bellagio, and Antonio Mella opens the Hotel Grande Bretagne on the Bellagio lakefront.

    Place: Villa d'Este, CernobbioStory: The century of the grand hotels

    The villa seen from above among the cypresses and trees of the park, with the blue lake and the far shore behind.