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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

9dates

Middle Ages

6th century to 1449 · 3 dates

  1. Second half of the 8th century

    A monastery on the mountain above Civate

    At the end of the Lombard kingdom a small monastery dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul is founded above Civate; legend credits King Desiderius with it. Between the 10th and the 11th century it becomes the Romanesque building of San Pietro al Monte, which can be reached only on foot.

    Place: Basilica of San Pietro al MonteStory: The monks' lake

    The oratory of San Benedetto at San Pietro al Monte, above Civate: a small stone church with slab roofs and a round apse with a little window, behind a stone wall that closes the terrace; lower down, beyond the bare woods, Lake Annone with villages round it and a road viaduct running past its tip, and in the distance mountains with snow on their summits under a blue sky.

  2. 24 January 835

    Limonta passes to the monastery of Sant'Ambrogio

    By a charter of the Emperor Lothair, Limonta becomes a fief of the Milanese monastery of Sant'Ambrogio, which holds it until 1797. For centuries the oil of this stretch of the Lecco branch burns in the lamps on the tomb of Milan's patron saint.

    Place: Oliveto LarioStory: The olive coast

    Limonta from the lake: on the shore wall a yellow and brick villa with a pagoda-roofed tower, cedars and a copper beech; above, houses climb the slope among silvery olive trees, and higher up the woods cover the mountain.

  3. 1336–1338

    Azzone Visconti's bridge at Lecco

    Azzone Visconti, lord of Milan, has the bridge built over the Adda where the river leaves the lake. It has eight arches; the people of Como, convinced that its narrowing floods their town, obtain three more between 1354 and 1440.

    Place: Ponte Azzone ViscontiStory: When the lake comes into town

    The bridge and its arches over the water, the snow-capped mountains above Lecco behind.

Renaissance and foreign rule

1450–1699 · 1 date

  1. 1606–1624

    The sanctuary of the Madonna del Moletto

    The Cistercian monk Roberto Rusca, who came to Limonta in 1605, builds the sanctuary of the Madonna del Moletto on the rock that drops sheer into the lake, so that boatmen on the water and farmers on the paths can see it.

    Place: Madonna del Moletto Sanctuary, Oliveto LarioStory: The olive coast

Nineteenth century

1800–1899 · 2 dates

  1. ‘The Betrothed' names the Lucia boats

    Alessandro Manzoni's novel is published for the first time. In it Lucia crosses the lake by night in a working boat with hoops for an awning, and from then on that boat is called a Lucia.

    Place: LeccoStory: The Lucie, the boats with hoops

    Lecco at dusk mirrored in still water, the bell tower of San Nicolò and the cliffs of Monte San Martino.

  2. The railway along the eastern shore

    With the section from Bellano to Colico, after the one from Lecco to Bellano in 1892, a complete rail service links Lecco with the Valtellina. As far as Colico the line has eighty-nine curves, eighteen viaducts and nineteen tunnels.

    Place: BellanoStory: When the railway reached the lake

    Varenna station on a sunny day: two white-and-green trains standing at the platform, lettered Trenord, and passengers getting off and walking along the platform with bags and hats; at the far end the tracks run into the tunnel, below a pale rock face and the woods.

Twentieth century

1900–1999 · 3 dates

  1. The road reaches the Piani Resinelli

    A carriage road reaches the plateau below the Grignetta, the starting point of Lecco's climbers; until then the way up was a mule track. On the spires above the Resinelli, Riccardo Cassin and Mary Varale had opened the Via Mary on the Guglia Angelina in 1931.

    Place: Parco Valentino BelvedereStory: The red sweaters of the Grignetta

    The Campaniletto del Rifugio, one of the Grignetta's spires, at blue hour: a blade of grey limestone scored with cracks rises against the sky on the left, with a small marker on its top; on the right, far below, the lights of a town beside a stretch of water, more lights scattered across the plain and the dark outlines of mountains.

  2. The Olginate dam regulates the lake

    Downstream of Lecco, between the lakes of Garlate and Olginate, the Consorzio dell'Adda's dam goes into operation, with eight fourteen-metre openings. It holds back water during floods and releases it in dry spells, and it reduces the number of times Piazza Cavour in Como ends up under water.

    Place: LeccoStory: When the lake comes into town

    The Olginate dam on a sunny day: a row of concrete piers joined by a white walkway crosses the river, and between one pier and the next the water spills over the gates in a strip of white foam; behind, the calm lake, the houses of a town and rocky mountains, on the right a wooded slope and a house with a red roof, in the foreground blue-green water over a bed of pebbles and a grassy bank.

  3. The Ragni della Grignetta are founded

    A group of young Lecco climbers founds the Ragni, the Spiders, recognisable by their red jumper with a seven-legged spider on the left sleeve. From the spires of the Grignetta they will reach Patagonia: in 1974 an expedition led by Casimiro Ferrari climbs Cerro Torre.

    Place: Palazzo delle PaureStory: The red sweaters of the Grignetta

    The Grignetta in the warm evening light: a crest of pale limestone towers and spires, packed like organ pipes, climbs from the left to the summit, with wisps of cloud among the rocks; below, grassy slopes and woods, and in the foreground the dark crowns of trees and the roof of a house, under a blue sky.