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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

5dates

Middle Ages

6th century to 1449 · 2 dates

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

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 · 1 date

  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.