Progetto MELA - Angera Nascosta [ENG]

Audio narration by eArsK. Il Fanciullo di Angera – Rocca di Angera (Anna Bernardoni AB)Narrator: Walking through the streets of the village, several spray-painted murals can be seen that were inspired by classical art, such as the portrait of Ludovico Il Moro on the wall of Forni’s house. These are the work of the artist Andrea Ravo Mattoni, who wanted to showcase Angera’s rich history. Il Fanciullo di Angera, or the Boy of Angera, covers the entire wall here and was inspired by Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit.Ravo chose this image to pay tribute to Angera’s agricultural traditions, winemaking in particular. Anna Bernardoni can tell us more: AB: “Grape cultivation was one of the most widespread activities in this area. Until the early years of the twentieth century, almost everyone in Angera owned a vineyard. You have to imagine Angera surrounded by row after row of grapevines, stretching north through the hills all the way to San Quirico.The evidence of this heritage is all around us. Besides this mural, there is the Cappella della Madonna dell’Uva, or the Chapel of Our Lady of the Grapes, just a few yards from the Rocca and, indeed, the fortress itself.The Rocca di Angera actually played a key role in local winemaking. By the eighteenth century, it no longer served as a military fortress and had been turned over to agricultural production. It possessed its own vineyards and soon became a centre for wine production. An old wine cellar can still be seen inside the fortress, with a monumental eighteenth-century wine press.This was probably used not only for the Rocca’s own grapes, but also those of local farmersThey had to pay to use it, since it belonged to the wealthy lords of the Rocca: the Borromeo family. This noble family is famous for producing two of Milan’s most important cardinals, Charles and Federico Borromeo, and still owns the Rocca today.The Rocca is now open to the public and has become one of Angera’s main attractions with its historic rooms and the splendid frescoes in the Hall of Justice. Visitors can also explore its beautiful gardens, the Scaligera Wing, which often stages contemporary art exhibitions, and the Doll Museum, the largest of its kind in Europe.”

Audio narration by eArsJ. Casa Forni (Pier Mario Forni PMF, Ele Remo Cardana RC, Anna Bernardoni AB)Narrator: Look at the large white house on this street. On the upper floor, there is a window on the right framed by the remains of an old fresco that displays two small columns and a decorated beam.At the same level on the left, there is a spray-painted canvas on the wall showing the profile of Ludovico Sforza, known as Il Moro, who was Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499.But what is the connection between this Renaissance figure, the frescoes, and the house?Its owner, Pier Mario Forni, is about to tell us:PMF: “The portrait of Il Moro is a reproduction by the artist Andrea Ravo Mattoni.It shows a detail from the frescoes that my wife and I accidentally rediscovered on the walls of our house during renovation work. They feature many prominent members of the Sforza family, the Dukes of Milan. There’s Francesco Sforza, Beatrice D’Este, and of course, Ludovico Il Moro. It’s a very important fresco, dating back to the late fifteenth century.Certain clues—such as the type of green used, the precision in the details, and the painted Gordian knots—suggest it may have been painted by an artist from the same period of Leonardo da Vinci, who was living in Milan at the time.”N: Ludovico Il Moro holds special meaning for Angera—or rather, for the ‘city’ of Angera.Anna Bernardoni explains why.AB: “In 1497, Ludovico Il Moro granted Angera the official title of city. It had been a small fishing village before that, under the control of the Borromeo family. Designation as a city gave it autonomy and freedom from feudal lords.This historical fact was discovered by a brilliant woman named Ambrogina Brovelli who, in 1954, found the edict in which Il Moro officially declared Angera to be a city.”

Audio narration by eArsH. Giombelli Bakery (Romina Penazzato RP)Narrator: Not everything from the distant past is lost forever or locked away behind glass in a museum.Would you like to sample the same kind of bread that the ancient Romans once did?We’re not offering a 2,000-year-old loaf—those are safely preserved in the museum!This is a recipe that has been faithfully recreated by baker Claudio Giombelli, and the results are still sold in this bakery every Thursday and Saturday.Let’s hear more from Romina Penazzato, Claudio’s wife, who works here every day.RP: “It all started in 2015, when Cristina Miedico, curator of the Civic Archaeological Museum of Angera, and Valeria Baietti, councillor for the Municipality of Angera, asked my husband, along with the chef Claudio Mei Tomasi, to recreate the types of bread from Roman times that had been found in Angera’s necropolis.Traditionally, loaves of bread were left in the tombs of the dead.Some of those loaves were preserved and, by analyzing them in the laboratory, it was possible to identify the original ingredients.The bread from ancient Angera was made with stone-ground wholemeal spelt and wheat flour, along with brewer’s yeast and extra virgin olive oil. There were three main shapes.The first was the Quadratus—a round loaf, marked with a cross in the center, which makes it easy to break apart and is seen as a symbol of sharing.Then there’s the Treccina, a braided loaf that reflected the pursuit of beauty—even at the table. And finally, the Tazìna or ‘little cup’, a ring-shaped loaf like a small bowl, used to hold soups or sauces. Today, we produce the Quadratus and the Treccia using stone-ground flours, simple tools, and plenty of skilled handiwork, in order to recreate a bread very similar to that of 2,000 years ago.In that way, we can offer a bread that is as close as possible to the original. It has earned the designation of Denominazione Comunale di Origine, the local certification of quality and origin. We are truly proud of the success of this beautiful project, and honored to offer our customers a bread with such a rich and historic flavour.”

Audio narration by eArs G. The Jetty (Anna Brovelli AB, Lorenzo Franzetti LF, Remo Cardana RC, Remo Cardana RC)Narrator: Rather than dividing the towns along its shores, the lake connects them and has been a silent witness to both minor and major events.The jetty is where ferries depart for and arrive from Arona, on the opposite side of the lake.A century ago, the ferry wasn’t the only way to cross. There were also local boatmen who offered private passage. Lorenzo Franzetti tells us about those times.LF: “There was a real ‘war’ between the boatmen, each trying to win over passengers.As soon as people arrived at the shore, they would surround them and compete to persuade them to choose their boat. The last of those boatmen was know as Pio Lei because he always addressed everyone so politely, using the Italian formal address ‘lei!’”N: Others simply took matters into their own hands, such as Anna Brovelli, who crossed the lake in her own boat as a girl to attend middle school in Arona.AB: “My father, Carletto Brovelli, was a boat builder and he built me a beautiful sailboat so I could get to school every morning. I even navigated in the fog: my father taught me how to use a compass, so I never had trouble finding my way.”N: When she grew up, Anna followed in her father’s footsteps and opened her own boatyard on Lake Maggiore called Nautica Brovelli.AB: “One of my clients was Piero Chiara, who wrote The Bishop’s Room, which is set right here on the lake. His novel was turned into a film and he insisted that I should provide the boats, both the one seen in the movie, and the one used by the crew to shoot scenes on the water.”N: The literary world, this time in Arona, also gave Angera its old nickname, as Remo Cardana now explain.RC: “It came from a book by Pietro Osso. During the festival for the Madonna della Riva, Pietro, who was from Arona, spotted the fairground tents across the lake. So he got in a boat and came over to Angera. And when he saw the women of Angera, he exclaimed: ‘Hey… Angera is a town full of beautiful women!’”N: Is that still true today? That is for you to say!

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.

Audio narration by eArsE. Sanctuary of the Madonna della Riva (Don Valentino Venezia DV)N: Have you ever seen a church that extends onto to the shore of a lake to the point of almost being lapped by its waters? No? Well, it is anything but simple to build!The people of Angera know this well. In the seventeenth century, they tried to build the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Riva. According to the original plan, the church was supposed to extend to the edge of the lake but construction had to be halted, due to the enormous costs and the structural risks caused by water infiltration.What we see today is just the presbytery of the large sacred building that had been planned.Despite its reduced size, this place holds a work of great significance: a fifteenth-century fresco of the Madonna nursing the child.A legend surrounds this work and Don Valentino Venezia is here to tell us about it.DV: “Actually, it’s not a legend. It’s history—the history of a miracle.It happened in long-ago 1657. The fresco wasn’t here in those days, it had originally been painted on the wall of a private home. Twice that year, the image of the Madonna was reported to have shed real tears of blood from her forehead and cheeks..The Sanctuary of the Madonna della Riva was built as a tribute to that miracle and now preserves the fresco.To commemorate the event, a procession is held every year on the 27th of June — the date of the first miraculous weeping.It’s a unique ritual that expresses our deep connection with Lake Maggiore.In the evening, after Mass at the sanctuary, a procession of illuminated boats departs from the church and heads toward Isolino Partegora.The lights of the boats can be seen dotted across the lake, creating a really evocative night-time scene.When they reach the island, a prayer is offered to Saint Arialdo.In fact, the day of the procession marks not only the date of the miracle but also the date of the saint’s martyrdom, which is thought to have taken place on Isolino Partegora.”

Audio narration by eArsD. The Habsburg Port – Angera’s Saffron  (Carmela Pappalardo CP)Narrator: Angera has always offered a berth for boats crossing Lake Maggiore.In Roman times, the landing site was located in a small inlet just south-east of Isolino Partegora. The small, stone-built port here dates from the nineteenth century during a period of Austrian rule. It was built by Ajcardo Castiglioni, a doctor of Angera with a wide range of interests, including physics and botany. It was in the latter field that he left Angera a lasting legacy. Carmela Pappalardo, founder of the farm Le Sinergie, explains.CP: In 1810, Ajcardo Castiglioni introduced saffron cultivation in Angera for the first time in Lombardy. It began with just five bulbs, obtained from the botanical garden in Pavia.In just a few years, he built up a significant production, which even found its way to shops in Milan. In 1829, he wrote a book on how to grow the plant, full of advice and anecdotes and urging Angera’s farmers to add this spice to their crops. Indeed, saffron is well suited to this land. It’s planted in late August and blooms between October and November, when we’re usually free from hailstorms that could harm the crops. Saffron isn’t troubled by rain or snow.N: Castiglioni’s advice went largely unheeded—at least at the time. His insights were rediscovered much later by Carmela and her farm.CP: We started growing it in 2015, directly inspired by his book. We harvest the flowers by hand while they’re still closed in order to preserve their aroma and quality. That’s what guarantees such a high-end product.Today, Angera’s Saffron has earned the designation of Denominazione Comunale di Origine, which certifies the authenticity and quality of local products.N: Just one more reason to enjoy a delicious risotto by the lakeside, if you haven’t already done so.

Audio narration by eArsC. Isolino Partegora (Pier Mario Forni PMF, Remo Cardana RC, Luigi Innocenti LI, Anna Bernardoni AB)Narrator: Take a seat on the benches along the lakeside promenade and look to the left, just past the ducks swimming near the shore. A small patch of land rises out of the water.It is a small island... Isolino Partegora!Today, it’s mostly known for its natural value but, in the past, it was connected to at least two extraordinary figures, one a man of religion, the other a man of  science.To find out about them in chronological order, we must turn the clock back a thousand years. Let’s hear the story from Pier Mario Forni:PMF: “Saint Arialdo was very probably martyred on Isolino Partegora in the year 1066. Born in Cuggiago, he became a deacon and later founded the Pataria movement, which condemned the Church’s attachment to material wealth. Arialdo did not even hold back from criticizing the archbishop of Milan and, for that, he was expelled from the city.Captured by his enemies, he was imprisoned in the Rocca of Angera before being tortured and killed on what the sources refer to as ‘a small island on Lake Maggiore’, understood to be Isolino.”N: Now our time travelling takes us from the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment and the early years of scientific inquiry, with Remo Cardana:RC: "That's right. At the end of the eighteenth century, the renowned scientist Alessandro Volta discovered what he called ‘inflammable swamp gas’, now better known as methane. On a boat trip around Isolino Partegora, he stirred up the bed of the lake with a stick and noticed bubbles rising to the surface. He managed to trap some of the gas in glass tubes and began to study its properties.”N: But what was the famous scientist from Como doing in Angera in the first place? We'll ask Anna Bernardoni.AB: “He came here on holiday as the guest of the brother of Teresa Castiglioni. Originally from Angera, she had married a nobleman from Como called Cesare Ciceri. Teresa was one of the first ever female scientists. Volta had such great respect for her that he sent her his scientific papers for her feedback and even arranged for her to be appointed a Correspondent Member of the Patriotic Society of Milan!She was also a brilliant agronomist who developed a way to make threads and fabrics from lupin plants and helped introduce potato cultivation in the Como area. She and Volta were close friends. She was his confidante.”

Audio narration by eArsB. Church of Sant’Alessandro  (Don Valentino Venezia DV)Narrator: In this journey through hidden places and memories, we’ve chosen not to take you to Angera’s main church. It’s just around the corner in the main square.Instead, we’ve brought you to the Church of Saints Alessandro, Sisinnio and Martirio—or simply Sant’ Alessandro. A little gem tucked away in a quiet street of the village.Here to reveal its secrets is Don Valentino Venezia.DV: Sant’Alessandro was the most important church in the area for centuries. It became a parish church—known as a pieve—starting in the Middle Ages and remained so until the 1500s.During that century, Cardinal Saint Charles Borromeo visited Angera and found the church too modest and poorly maintained. He even ordered it to be demolished to make way for a new parish church. But the people of Angera were deeply attached to this sacred place. Rather than see it destroyed, they offered to restore it themselves. And so, Sant’Alessandro was saved—and rightly so.N: This church is a little treasure chest of sacred art. Above the main door, a low-relief carving can be seen with a distinctive emblem.DV: "It shows a monstrance—the vessel used to display the consecrated host, which the faithful believe to be the body of Christ.This was the symbol chosen by the lay confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, which used this church and celebrated the Eucharist here.That’s why, inside, the vault above the altar is entirely covered with frescoes of various scenes concerning the Eucharist."N: The frescoes date back to the 17th century, with one important exception, which is even older.DV: "You’ll find it on the left-hand wall. It’s a Madonna Regina, Our Lady the Queen of Heaven, painted in the 15th century. It’s a historic icon for Angera, and it has been greatly venerated by the townspeople ever since the time of Charles Borromeo."

Audio narration by eArsA. Angera Civic Archaeological Museum (Remo Cardana RC, Luigi Innocenti LI, Anna Bernardoni AB)Narrator: Anyone with a passion for archaeology knows that necropolises are real treasure troves of ancient artifacts, buried alongside the dead among their grave goods. The Roman necropolis of Angera lies in the exact location of the modern-day cemetery.But there’s another place of great significance, the source of many objects now displayed here in the Civic Archaeological Museum.It’s a cave, just beneath the fortress—known to the locals as the Tana del Lupo, the Wolf’s Lair.No longer accessible, this was once a place people often visited—not just archaeologists, but even children and teenagers, like Remo Cardana:RC: "Even when I was a kid, it was off-limits. The name in dialect, Boeuc del Luf, was probably meant to scare us children away and keep us out. But of course, we went in anyway. It was like stealing apples. And when we were older, we went there to smoke!Hah!"N: It was clear even then that the Wolf’s Lair was more than just a cave. Excavations began as early as the nineteenth century and continued well into modern times.Luigi Innocenti took part in the 1973 excavations with the Mario Bertolone Historical and Archaeological Association, which played a crucial role in the rediscovery and protection of Angera’s most ancient past.LI: "On the slope leading up to the fortress of Angera, hidden by dense vegetation and carved into the rock face, lies a large cave.In 1868, a scholar from Como named Biondelli noticed several carved recesses on the outer wall of the cave—once used to hold roman inscriptions.He was the first to suspect that, in Roman times, the cave had been a place of worship, perhaps dedicated to Mithras. Later archaeological excavations confirmed that the site had also been inhabited in prehistoric times—around 14,000 years ago. Excavations carried out in 1973 in the cave led to the discovery of a small space that had remained untouched for two thousand years.There, on the floor, several Roman oil lamps and three coins from the 4th century were recovered. These items are now on display at the local museum. The space was named “Saletta Monica” in honor of Monica Jung, the youngest member of the excavation team.N: Recent studies also suggest that the cave may have hosted a cult dedicated to female deities: the Matronae.