Page 193 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

NOR THWEST IT AL Y  191

LOMBARDY

The region of Lombardy stretches from the Alps, on the
border with Switzerland, down through the romantic
lakes of Como and Maggiore to the broad, flat plain of
the River Po. It is an area of lakeside villas with azalea-filled
gardens, of wealthy towns with imposing palazzi and highly
decorated churches, and of efficient, modern industry and
large-scale agriculture, the financial heart of Italy. At its centre
stands Milan, the style-conscious capital of Lombardy.

The region was named after the Lombards 16th century. These dynasties also became
or Longobards, a Germanic tribe that great patrons of the arts, commissioning
invaded Italy in the 6th century AD. During exquisite palaces, churches and artworks,
the Middle Ages, Lombardy was part of many of which can still be seen. Bergamo,
the Holy Roman Empire, but not always Mantua and Cremona – not to mention
loyal to its German emperors. The Milan itself – contain a remarkably rich
Lombards, who had a talent for banking array of art treasures. Here are such
and commerce, resented any outside pinnacles of European civilization as the
interference with their prosperity. charterhouse at Pavia, Leonardo da Vinci’s
The 12th century saw the rise of the Last Supper and the magnificent paintings
Lega Lombarda, or Lombard League, a of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
band of forceful separatists founded to Lombardy – famous as the birthplace of
counter the brutal imperialism of Frederick Virgil, Monteverdi, Stradivarius and Donizetti –
Barbarossa (their most modern incarnation today offers visitors the contrasting
being the Lega Nord political party). pleasures of lyrical lakeside landscapes
Power was seized by the region’s great (resorts on lakes Como and Maggiore have
families, most notably the Visconti and the attracted poets, aristocrats and gamblers
Sforza of Milan, from the 14th to the early for centuries) and beautiful, bustling cities.

Strolling through Milan’s enormous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The village of Corenno Plinio on the peaceful eastern shores of the beautiful Lake Como

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