Paratico

When the railway from Palazzolo reached Paratico in 1876, the line stopped at the shore of Lake Iseo and the wagons carried on afloat: the town became the transfer point for the barges that ferried across the trucks loaded with steel products coming down from Lovere. The station of Paratico-Sarnico is still there, the last on the line, and the Fondazione FS Italiane uses it for tourist trains. The exact geographical centre of Lombardy also falls within the municipal territory, which makes this stretch of shore at once a terminus and a centre of gravity.

Four thousand four hundred and sixty-four inhabitants in the province of Brescia, at the southern end of the lake, on the western edge of the Franciacorta. On the shore, remains of pile-dwelling settlements dating to 2000 BC have been found. Above the town stand the ruins of the castle of the Lantieri, which controlled the outflow of the Oglio from the lake and was almost entirely dismantled in the early sixteenth century; according to the family chronicle, written in 1600, Dante stayed there in 1311 and drew from those walls the shape of his Purgatory. It is a tradition, not a document, and should be taken as such.