Longone al Segrino

The annals of Longone record that the first victim of the plague of 1630 was a peasant from the hamlet of Arsago, Bartolomeo De Conti. The curate Francesco Piantanida went to give him extreme unction and wrote his will, on Tuesday 30 July; the next day he died too, of the same disease. After that year the plague never came back, but in August 1836 cholera arrived: those who caught it died within a day and were buried at night.

The village lies in a hollow among moraine hills, beside the lake of Segrino, which is called so because the ancients had dedicated it to the gods: Fonte Sacra, the sacred spring, then Sacrino, then Segrino. In the middle of the village stands a square tower of dressed blocks, already there in 990, which served as a toll house on the road to the plain of Erba. And on 5 December 1853 the comune decided to divide the communal woods into lots — where until then anyone could cut wood and graze animals — and to give one to each family.