F. Via Da Muu – The Fishermen’s Lime Trees

Audio narration by eArsF. Via Da Muu – The Fishermen’s Lime Trees (Remo Cardana RC, Lorenzo Franzetti LF)Narrator: This is Via Merzagora, or perhaps we should say Via Da Muu, as it was once called, which means “Street of Love” in the local dialect.This used to be the old fishermen’s quarter.If you look in the direction of the lake, you can see some centuries-old lime trees, known as the Fishermen’s Lime Trees. Remo Cardana can tell us how they got their name:RC: “They were once used by fishermen who hammered nails into the trunks to hang their nets on while they repaired them. After a night out fishing, they would lay the nets out on the wide grassy lawns by the lake to dry. Nets need a lot of maintenance. Near the sports field, there’s still an old furnace—the tencia—where the fishermen dyed their nets.They would boil them with chestnut husks, which turned the nets brown and so made them more difficult for the fish to see. Moreover, the tannin in the chestnuts helped preserve the nets, stopping them from wearing out.”N: But the story of Angera’s fishermen is also shrouded in legend. Here’s Lorenzo Franzetti:LF: “Once, Angera was under the rule of the King of Spain. One day, a Spanish princess was crossing the lake by boat when it was suddenly caught in a storm.Luckily, she was saved by local fishermen. As a reward, King Philip IV granted them an exemption from paying fishing taxes. And that’s still the case today!I suspect the truth is simpler—and more realistic.It was probably a concession obtained through the influence of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, in recognition of the extreme poverty that the people of Angera faced at that time.”N: Reality and imagination sometimes exist in parallel. After all, the history of a place is also made up of imagined stories that, even if not true, allow us to dream a little.