Lake Como

Lake Como is the first landscape description to enter the minds of readers of the Promessi Sposi, and the novel’s opening sentence (“That branch of the lake of Como which extends southwards between two unbroken chains of mountains …”) has been fixed in the memory of many generations of readers. A nocturnal lake setting is used for Lucia’s equally famous Addio ai monti, one of the highest lyric moments in the entire novel. The departure of the protagonists across the water to their separate destinations and adventures also has a symbolic value, and represents the first crucial moment in the plot, taking Renzo and Lucia beyond the limited and familiar dimension of their village and placing them in a complex world of relationships, discoveries and experiences through which they develop. It was in fact Manzoni’s novel that inaugurated the vast amount of “lake” literature that appeared during the romantic period and beyond, where lake description is linked to narrative invention. This literature consisted mainly of novels and short stories set on the shores of Lake Como (also known as the Lario) and other Lombard lakes, and included Cesare Cantù’s novella in verse, Algiso, and his historical novel Margherita Pusterla, Tommaso Grossi’s novella in verse, Ulrico e Lida, and his novel Marco Visconti, and Giulio Carcano’s sentimental novel, Angiola Maria. In this period, however, “lake” literature also appeared in travel journals, memoirs and “tourist” descriptions, where it is often difficult to distinguish between the subjective element of literary invention and the objective topographic description (for example, in Como e il suo lago. Illustrazione storica, geografica e poetica del Lario e circostanti paesi, by A. Gentile and P. Turati, 1858, the places are in fact a pretext for a story of crossed love). Nineteenth century iconography also includes a series of attractive lake views, particularly of the Lario and the Verbano (Lake Maggiore).