Lenno ( Lombard : Lenn ) was a comune (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy , located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Milan and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) northeast of Como . As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,800 and an area of 9.6 km.
112-465: Lenno bordered the following municipalities: Bellagio , Bene Lario , Grandola ed Uniti , Lezzeno , Mezzegra , Ossuccio , Porlezza , Tremezzo . The Comune di Lenno was united to Mezzegra , Ossuccio and Tremezzo to form a single municipality named Comune di Tremezzina : the new administration was formalized after election of the Mayor on 25 May 2014. Lenno was twinned with: This article on
224-539: A balm to the eyes. ... the horizon is lined with snow and the foreground alternates between the graceful and the rugged—a truly Shakespearean landcape [ sic ], all the forces of nature are brought together, with an overwhelming sense of vastness. In 1859, as part of the Second Italian War of Independence , Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps defeated Austrian troops at San Fermo , entering Como and bringing
336-529: A city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid 's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to whom he alludes. Although
448-464: A commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus . Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil
560-520: A district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples , near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli . While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. Through
672-415: A few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature . Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all
784-456: A fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love ( Ecl . 2) and attraction toward people of any gender ( Ecl . 3). Eclogue 4 , addressed to Asinius Pollio , the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who
896-552: A location in the Province of Como is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bellagio (Italian region) Bellagio ( Italian: [belˈlaːdʒo] ; Comasco : Belàs [beˈlaːs] ) is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region of Lombardy . It is located on Lake Como , also known by its Latin-derived name Lario , whose arms form an inverted Y. The triangular land mass at
1008-460: A member of the gens Magia , to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio , just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua, which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo , not Pietole,
1120-420: A mixture of races which became more and more complex in the following centuries. Also it increased its strategic importance because, as well as a place for wintering, it sheltered warships especially at Loppia, where the natural creek made it easy to repair them. Around Loppia there formed one of the first suburbs of Bellagio. The Romans introduced many Mediterranean crops, including the olive and bay laurel; from
1232-488: A particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan 's epic, the Bellum Civile , has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival
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#17330933543581344-593: A place of mass tourism. Bellagio was part of the Italian Social Republic (RSI) from 1943 to 1945. The Futurist writer and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , a Mussolini loyalist who had helped shape Fascist philosophy, remained in the RSI as a propagandist until his death from a heart attack at Bellagio in December 1944. Luchino Visconti put Bellagio in a scene of his film Rocco and His Brothers (1960). The scene
1456-464: A refugee of the Trojan War , named Aeneas , as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. His intentions are to reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus are to found the city of Rome. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas , a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of
1568-497: A room on the second floor; there, I lift my gaze to the most beautiful view in the world, after the Gulf of Naples ... Franz Liszt and his mistress Comtesse Marie d'Agoult stayed for four months of 1837 on their way from Switzerland to Como and Milan. In Bellagio he wrote many of the piano pieces which became Album d'un voyageur (1835–38) , landscapes seen through the eyes of Byron and Senancour . These works contributed much to
1680-399: A sloped grid are seven medieval stone stairs ("salite") running uphill. The Basilica of San Giacomo and a stone tower, sole relic of medieval defences ("Torre delle Arti Bellagio"), sit in a piazza at the top. Along the banks of the promontory of Bellagio are many old patrician houses, each surrounded by parks and gardens of trees. Some like Villa Serbelloni and Villa Melzi d'Eril are open to
1792-514: A town that took the name of Cernobbio in memory of the country of origin of their liberators. With the death of Filippo Maria , the House of Visconti lost power. For a short time the area was transformed into the Ambrosian Republic (1447–50), until Milan capitulated to Francesco Sforza , who became Duke of Milan and Lombardy. Bellagio, whose territory (and especially the fortress) was occupied by
1904-658: Is around 25 to 28 °C (77 to 82 °F), mitigated during the afternoon by the characteristic breva , the gentle breeze of Lake Como. The historic centre of Bellagio is located 350 m southwest of the promontory of the Larian Triangle , between the Villa Serbelloni on the hill and the Como arm of the lake. At the far tip of the promontory are a park and a marina. Parallel to the shore are three streets, Mazzini, Centrale and Garibaldi in ascending order. Cutting across them to form
2016-672: Is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas. The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown. Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic. According to
2128-760: Is composed of polenta mixed with butter and cheese and accompanied with dried fish from the lake, cold, stuffed chicken or home-made salami. Red wine is shared from a communal jug. For dessert, miasca —cake made with cornflour and dried fruit; Pan meino —made with white and yellow flour, eggs, butter, milk and elder flowers; or paradèl [ it ] —a wafer of white flour, milk and sugar. The airports nearest to Bellagio are: Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro ( Classical Latin : [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː] ; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( / ˈ v ɜːr dʒ ɪ l / VUR -jil ) in English,
2240-403: Is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers. A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante, identifies Andes with modern Pietole , two or three miles southeast of Mantua. The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua. There are eight or nine references to
2352-616: Is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus , who later helped finish the Aeneid . At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius , by Augustus . According to
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#17330933543582464-520: Is on the Europa Promenade, between the pier and the half-derelict Hotel Grande Bretagne. Rocco implies that the old hotels are fading along with the empires they served. The fact that working-class Rocco and his girlfriend are there to make the observation implies in turn the new world of mass tourism replacing them. Ironies lie beyond the scope of the film: the new American empire would find uses of its own for Bellagio. In 2014, Bellagio merged with
2576-410: Is said to have received the toga virilis on the very day that Lucretius died. From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome. After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of
2688-433: Is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet. A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius. Henry Nettleship believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius, but it
2800-550: Is set in English style gardens which develop harmoniously along the banks of the lake, the last reaches of the view from Bellagio towards the hills to the south. Making such a garden required notable changes to the structure of the land and outstanding supporting walls. In such surroundings, enriched by monuments, artefacts (amongst which are a Venetian gondola transported to Bellagio expressly for Napoleon, and two precious Egyptian statues), rare exotic plants, ancient trees, hedges of camellias, groves of azaleas and gigantic rhododendrons,
2912-473: Is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus. The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused
3024-456: Is the site of Andes. E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio 's 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading. Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that
3136-545: Is transmitted chiefly in vitae ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus , Donatus , and Servius . The life given by Donatus is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence , where Suetonius is explicitly credited. The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements. Varius
3248-701: The Divine Comedy . Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia , as one of the four regulati poetae along with Ovid , Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7). The Renaissance saw a number of authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; Paradise Lost was influenced by the example of the Aeneid ; and later artists influenced by Virgil include Berlioz and Hermann Broch . The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in
3360-473: The gens to which Vergil belonged, gens Vergilia , in inscriptions from Northern Italy . Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona , and one in an inscription from Calvisano , a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia. A tomb erected by
3472-613: The Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses , the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as
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3584-516: The Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad . Book 1 (at
3696-610: The Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox ) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" ( Epistulae 3.7.8). The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ( grotta vecchia ) in Piedigrotta ,
3808-624: The Catalepton , consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus , which were written in dactylic hexameter . While some readers have identified
3920-536: The Cisalpine Republic to establish here his summer home. Count Melzi proceeded to build a villa on the west bank near Loppia. That brought to the area the flower of the Milanese nobility and the promontory was transformed into an elegant and refined court. Roads suitable for carriages were built, first of all to link the villas and the palaces and then towards the town centre; finally the provincial road Erba–Bellagio
4032-499: The Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and is regarded as one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature ( T. S. Eliot referred to it as 'the classic of all Europe'). The work (modelled after Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey ) chronicles
4144-593: The Lario opened in 1852; the Grand Hotel Bellagio (now the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni ) opened in 1872. In 1888 the three largest hotels (Genazzini, Grande Bretagne and Grand Hotel Bellagio) first replaced gaslight with electric, and only after this were they followed by many patrician houses. Bellagio was one of the first Italian tourist resorts to become international, but it has never degenerated into
4256-501: The Middle Ages , and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos , demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he
4368-518: The Paleolithic Period (about 30,000 years ago), it is only in the 7th to 5th centuries BC that there appears to be a castellum on the promontory, perhaps a place of worship and of exchange which served the numerous small villages on the lake. The first identifiable inhabitants of the territory of Bellagio, from 400BC, were the Insubres , a Celtic tribe in part of Lombardy and on Lake Como up to
4480-467: The Renaissance of the 12th century , Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum, and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age. Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil", but they could not deny the power of his appeal. Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in
4592-466: The golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life. Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination . In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In
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4704-588: The neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna , it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus 's neoteric circle. According to the Catalepton , he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana , but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One,
4816-488: The toga virilis, suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy equestrian landowner. He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began
4928-478: The 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician . Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt , became
5040-662: The 17th and 18th centuries. Today you can visit only the gardens. The trails, as well as the villa, lead to the remains of the 16th-century Capuchin monastery and the Sfondrata, a residence built by the Sfondrati family indeed, overlooking the Lecco branch of the lake. Quite different is the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni on the water's edge. A luxurious neo-classical villa built in the 1850s for an aristocratic Milanese family became
5152-479: The Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus , and who committed suicide in 26 BC. The tone of the Georgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading
5264-519: The Borromean Islands, about Lake Como, unless it be that one pities those who are not madly in love with them ... the sky is pure, the air mild, and one recognises the land beloved of the gods, the happy land that neither barbarous invasions nor civil discords could deprive of its heaven-sent blessings. At Bellagio he was the guest of the Melzi d’Eril, from whose villa he wrote: I isolate myself in
5376-565: The Gallo-Insubres in a fierce battle near Camerlata, occupying Como and the shores of the lake. Insubre hopes of independence were raised by an alliance with Hannibal during the Second Punic War , but dashed by defeat in 104 BC and absorption into a Roman province in 80 BC. Bellagio became both a Roman garrison and a point of passage and wintering for the Roman armies on their way through to
5488-827: The Goths. The line included the fortress of Bellagio, the Isola Comacina and the Castel Baradello . Nevertheless, around 568 the Lombards, led by Alboin , poured into the Po Valley and settled in various parts of Lombardy, in the valleys of the Alps and along the lakes. Even the fortress of Bellagio was occupied. In 744 King Liutprand settled there. With their arrival in Italy, the Franks of Charlemagne descended on Piedmont and Lombardy and, through
5600-457: The Latin poet, visited Bellagio and remembered the lake in the second book of the Georgics , verse 155 ("or great Lario"). Pliny the Younger, resident in Como for most of the year, had, among others, a summer villa near the top of the hill of Bellagio; it was known as "Tragedy". Pliny describes in a letter the long periods he spent in his Bellagio villas , not only studying and writing but also hunting and fishing. Through Bellagio passed, in 9 AD,
5712-458: The Latin word for 'wand' ( uirga ), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages . There is also a possibility that virg- is meant to evoke the Latin virgo ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the fourth Eclogue , which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic , interpretations . Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he
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#17330933543585824-578: The Roman legions (partly composed of soldiers from the Bellagio garrison) led by Publius Quinctilius Varus , which had to cross the Splügen pass into Germany against Arminius . They were annihilated in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . At the time of the barbarian invasions, Narses , a general of Justinian , in his long wanderings through Italy waging war, created along Lake Como a fortified line against
5936-542: The Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas ; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to
6048-458: The actual landscape of Lake Como: at least four times the glaciers went as far as Brianza to the south. From the ancient glacial blanket only the highest tops emerged, one of them Mount St. Primo, which obliged the glaciers to divide into two arms. Nowadays, a luxuriance of trees and flowers is favoured by a mild and sweet climate. The average daytime temperature during winter is rarely below 6 to 7 °C (43 to 45 °F), while during summer it
6160-464: The advent of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy , he was its Chancellor. Even after his political career had ended, since this was a Melzi residence, the construction, which he wanted as elegant as the Royal Villa of Monza and the other villas around Lake of Como, was decorated and furnished by famous artists of the period: painters Appiani and Bossi , sculptors Canova and Comolli , and
6272-566: The ancient vitae , Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy , added to Italy proper during his lifetime). The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married. According to Phocas and Probus,
6384-468: The attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the Eclogues . This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues . In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of
6496-513: The base of the inverted Y is the Larian Triangle : at its northern point sits Bellagio, looking across to the northern arm of the lake and, behind it, the Alps . It has always been famous for its location. It belongs to a mountain community named Comunità montana del Triangolo lariano ( Larian Triangle mountain community), based in Canzo . Even though there are signs of a human presence around Bellagio in
6608-403: The beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus ' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that
6720-505: The celebrities of human history in The House of Fame (1486–7), describing him as standing on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the Divine Comedy , in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory , Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore ( Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone
6832-705: The centre of the lake, occupying the western shore (the Orobii had the northern arm of the lake and its east bank). The Insubres lived free and independently until the arrival of the Gauls , led by Belloveso, who, around the year 600 BC, undid the Insubres and settled in Milan and Como, occupying the shores of the lake and creating a garrison at the extreme point of their conquest, Bellagio (fancifully Bellasium, named after their commander Belloveso). The Gauls thus became Gallo-Insubres, merged with
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#17330933543586944-475: The child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus ; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus . Virgil in his Eclogues is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and with setting
7056-559: The climb to the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Ghisallo , the patron saint of cyclists, and therefore an important destination for fans of the sport. The ascent covers a total distance of about 4 km and has a vertical rise of about 500 meters; professional cyclists can do it in 20 minutes. You can also make the climb from Onno to Valbrona on the eastern shore of the lake, and the Wall of Sormano on
7168-443: The death in 1788 of Carlo, last of the Sfondrati, Bellagio passed to Count Alessandro Serbelloni , henceforth Serbelloni Sfondrati. During the brief Napoleonic period, the port of Bellagio assumed military and strategic importance. A decision, apparently of secondary importance, was to guide the destiny of Bellagio for the two succeeding two centuries: the decision of Count Francesco Melzi d'Eril, Duke of Lodi and Vice President of
7280-488: The destruction of Como and its subjection to Milan, from which it took decades to recover. It is thought that by 1100 Bellagio was already a free commune and seat of a tribunal and that its dependence on Como was merely formal. However the strategic position of Bellagio was very important for the city of Como, and Bellagio had therefore to suffer more than one incursion from Como and fought numerous naval battles against its neighbour. In 1154, under Frederick Barbarossa , Bellagio
7392-432: The divine Aeneid , but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus . With almost every line of his epic Punica , Silius references Virgil. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue – widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have
7504-448: The emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar 's Virgil Reading the Aeneid . Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However,
7616-450: The end of the 13th century, Bellagio, which had participated in numerous wars on the side of the Ghibellines (the pro-empire party), became part of the property of the House of Visconti and was integrated into the Duchy of Milan . In 1440, during the lordship of the Visconti , some Cernobbiesi attacked the prison of Bellagio in which the inmates were political prisoners. Liberated, they took flight into mountains of Bellagio, settling in
7728-401: The fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises , who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae , in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl , who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son. Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to
7840-402: The head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno , Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage , which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido , welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of
7952-470: The hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics ) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and
8064-484: The high Alps, defeated the Lombards in the battle of Pavia of 773. The Lombard territory was divided into counties — thus the beginning of feudalism. Bellagio found itself in the county of Milan under the suzerainty of the Frankish kings. The grandson of Charlemagne, Lothair , having deposed his father in 834, invested as feudal lords of the territory of Limonta and Civenna the monks of Saint Ambrose of Milan (together with
8176-672: The highest rank of Milanese society, ruled Bellagio. The ruins of the sumptuous Stanga building were restructured by Francesco and, successively, by Ercole Sfondrati, who spent the last years of his life in pious religious passion in the villa. On the same peninsula he built the church and convent of the Capuchins (1614), investing enormous capital in the setting, where appeared cypress trees and sweet olives . Favoured by Bellagio's ideal position for transport and trade, various small industries flourished, most notably candle-making and silk weaving with its concomitant silk worms and mulberry trees. With
8288-583: The image of Bellagio and the lake as a site of Romantic feeling. D'Agoult's letters show they were sadly aware of drawing an age of motorised tourism in their train. In 1838, Bellagio received with all honours the Emperor Ferdinand I , the Archduke Rainer and the Minister Metternich , who came from Varenna on the Lario , the first steamboat on the lake, launched in 1826. Bellagio was one of
8400-506: The land around the Lake of Lario two centuries of Spanish rule (the period in which Alessandro Manzoni 's novel The Betrothed is set). The so-called Derta steps that lead from the neighbourhood of Guggiate to that of Suira were built under the Spanish. In 1533, Francesco Sfondrati , married to a Visconti, had acquired the fiefdom of Bellagio and for more than 200 years the Sfondrati family, from
8512-427: The latter spelling spread to the modern European languages. This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown Vergilius to be the original spelling. Today, the anglicisations Vergil and Virgil are both considered acceptable. There is some speculation that the spelling Virgilius might have arisen due to a pun, since virg- carries an echo of
8624-506: The localities most frequented by the Lombardy nobility and saw the construction of villas and gardens. Luxury shops opened in the village and tourists crowded onto the lakeshore drive. Space was not sufficient and it was decided to cover the old port which came up as far as the arcade in order to construct a large square. Gustav Flaubert visited Bellagio in 1845. He told his travel diary: One could live and die here. The outlook seems designed as
8736-525: The magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae , the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian , and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius ,
8848-405: The medalist Luigi Manfredini . The duke had a collector's passion which, in the region on Lake Como, had no rival except that of Giovan Battista Sommariva, owner of the villa bearing the same name (nowadays Villa Carlotta ) who, politically defeated by Melzi himself (preferred by Napoleon as vice-president), tried to regain lost prestige by assembling an extraordinary art collection. Villa Melzi
8960-558: The muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus . Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus , the king of the Rutulians , who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata , Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander , who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on
9072-577: The name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla. The cognomen of Virgil's maternal family, Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name ( Magi ) in Servius' life from the genitive magi of the noun magus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself. Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation
9184-466: The name of the latter (Laurus) derives the Latin name of Lake Como (Larius). Among the other plant species introduced were the chestnut, already widespread in southern Italy, the cypress, so well naturalised today as to be considered native, and many kinds of herbaceous plants. In the early decades of the Empire, two great figures brought fame to the lake and Bellagio: Virgil and Pliny the Younger . Virgil,
9296-460: The nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the Grand Tour , and it still draws visitors today. According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and later went to Cremona , Milan , and finally Rome to study rhetoric , medicine , and astronomy , which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to
9408-501: The nucleus of the (then-called) Grand Hotel Bellagio, opened in 1873. The hotel retains its original Belle Époque fittings. This significant building overlooking the lake was built between 1808 and 1815 by the architect Giocondo Albertolli for Francesco Melzi d'Eril , created Duke of Lodi (the city of Lodi, Lombardy ) by Napoleon for whom he filled the role of vice-president of the Italian Republic from 1802. From 1805, with
9520-483: The one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology , or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars ; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study
9632-414: The one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him." Biographical information about Virgil
9744-450: The only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter ). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate. The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry . The Eclogues , Georgics , and above all
9856-458: The poem be burned , instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus, or at Taranto according to some late manuscripts of Servius, Virgil's remains were transported to Naples , where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces ; " Mantua gave me life,
9968-549: The poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god ( Ecl . 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl . 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues ( Ecl . 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with
10080-498: The primitive inhabitants and introduced their customs and traditions, leaving traces in local names: Crux Galli (now Grosgalla), on the side of Lezzeno, and Gallo, a small chapel on the old road of Limonta which marks today the border between the two municipalities. In 225 BC, the territory of the Gallo-Insubres was occupied by the Romans, in their gradual expansion to the north. The Romans, led by consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus , defeated
10192-659: The province of Raetia and the Splügen pass . Troops wintered at the foot of the present Villa Serbelloni, sheltered from north winds and the Mediterranean climate. Such variant Latin names as Belacius and Bislacus suggest Bellagio was originally Bi-lacus ("between the lakes"). Between 81 and 77 BC Cornelius Scipio brought 3,000 Latin colonists to Lake Como. From 59 BC Julius Caesar , as pro-consul, brought up another 5000 colonists, most importantly 500 Greeks from Sicily. Their names are still borne by their descendants. Bellagio became
10304-505: The province under Piedmontese rule. Bellagio thus became part of the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy until Germany created in 1943 the puppet Italian Social Republic under Benito Mussolini . Tourism in the Kingdom of Italy had now become the principal economic resource of the people of Bellagio and from this period on the history of Bellagio coincides with that of its hotels. The first
10416-485: The public. Just behind the hill of the promontory into the lake, protected from the winds, is the building complex of Villa Serbelloni . The villa dominates the town's historic centre. It can be reached from Via Garibaldi. It was built in the 15th century in place of an old castle razed in 1375. Villa Serbelloni was later rebuilt several times. In 1788 it came into the possession of Alessandro Serbelloni (1745–1826) who enriched it with precious decorations and works of art of
10528-578: The reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles." Other studies claim that today's consideration for ancient Andes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo . By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling Vergilius had been changed to Virgilius , and then
10640-566: The road to the western shore. These two climbs, with the ascent to the Sanctuary, are part of the Tris del Lario competition. Treks of all degrees of difficulty are possible around and above Bellagio on the Larian Triangle. Bellagio Lifestyle gives the major treks with maps and route descriptions. The traditional Bellagino feast day dish is the Tóch [ it ] . Eaten with a wooden spoon, it
10752-414: The sack of Troy , the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of
10864-458: The stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus , Nemesianus and later writers. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod 's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on: Well-known passages include
10976-507: The succession to the bishop of Como between Milan, supporting a bishop imposed by the German Emperor, and Como, which had already designated as bishop Guido Grimoldi, consecrated by the Pope. The war lasted ten years (1117–1127), with a series of small victories and defeats on land and water. Bellagio participated with its fleet as an ally of Milan, Isola Comacina and Gravedona . The war ended with
11088-436: The supposed biographic incident. Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas , Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace , in whose poetry he
11200-451: The territory of Campione d'Italia ). The inhabitants of these two places, which later belonged ecclesiastically to the parish of Bellagio (St. John), were obliged to hand over some of their produce (olive oil, chestnuts ...) to the monks, an obligation preserved for several centuries. There followed the rule of the Ottonian dynasty of Germany. During the reign of Henry V began a long war over
11312-474: The town of Civenna : the new municipality retains the name of Bellagio. Bellagio is situated upon the cape of the land mass that divides Lake Como in two. The city centre occupies the tip of the promontory , while other districts are scattered along the lake shores and up the slopes of the hills. The great Pleistocene glaciations with their imposing flows coming from the Valtellina and Valchiavenna modelled
11424-616: The tradition, Virgil traveled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid . After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara . After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca , to disregard Virgil's own wish that
11536-561: The troops of Sforza in 1449 during the war of succession, was one of the first towns on the lake to take sides and adhere to Sforza rule. In 1508, under Ludovico il Moro (1479–1508), the estate of Bellagio was taken from the bishop of Como and assigned to the Marquis of Stanga, treasurer, ambassador and friend of il Moro. Stanga built a new villa on Bellagio hill, later ruined in a raid by Cavargnoni. In 1535, when Francesco II Sforza (the last Duke of Milan ) died, there started for Lombardy and
11648-480: The underworld. Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas,
11760-517: The villa, the chapel and the glass house constitute an ensemble in which the neoclassical style reaches one of its highest peaks. Rowing is based at the Bellagina Sporting Union, a club specializing in football and especially rowing: world rowing champions Enrico Gandola , Alberto Belgeri , Igor Pescialli , Franco Sancassani and Daniele Gilardoni were born in Bellagio and began their racing careers with Bellagina. From Bellagio starts
11872-700: Was a master poet – Saint Augustine , for example, confessing how he had wept at reading the death of Dido. The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity such as the Vergilius Augusteus , the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus . Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death". In
11984-605: Was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period . He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature : the Eclogues (or Bucolics ), the Georgics , and the epic Aeneid . A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana , were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of
12096-583: Was completed. The fame of the lakeside town became well known outside the borders of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia : even the Emperor Francis I of Austria visited in 1816 and returned in 1825 to stay in the Villas Serbelloni, Trotti and Melzi. The Romantic discovery of landscape was changing how the Italian lakes were seen. Stendhal had first visited in 1810: What can one say about Lake Maggiore, about
12208-457: Was forced to swear loyalty and pay tribute to Como. In 1169, after the destruction of Milan by Frederick Barbarossa (1162), Como attacked Isola Comacina, devastating it and forcing the inhabitants to flee to Varenna and Bellagio, at that time considered impregnable fortresses. The Lombard League was formed, in which Bellagio also participated as an ally of Milan, intervening in the Battle of Legnano (1176) against Barbarossa and Como. Towards
12320-553: Was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogue 4 , which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus's birth . In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity. Relatedly, The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about
12432-575: Was the present Hotel Metropole, founded in 1825 from the transformation of the old hostelry of Abbondio Genazzini into the first real hotel on the Lario, the Hotel Genazzini. Following this example in the space of a few years came several splendid hotels many of which are still operating, frequently in the hands of the same families who founded them: the Hotel Firenze, built on the old house of the captain of
12544-415: Was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and then left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle . Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving . In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation
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