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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

4dates

Middle Ages

6th century to 1449 · 2 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.

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 · 1 date

  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.