Porlezza

Porlezza is in the province of Como but belongs to the diocese of Milan, and the reason is a decree that remained a dead letter: in 1240 Frederick II laid down that jurisdiction should pass to Como, but that decree was never carried out. Its pieve, dedicated to Saint Victor, is one of the fifty-seven of the old Milanese archdiocese, and its antiquity can be read in two signs: its position far from the bishop's seat, and the saint it is named after, who was very much a Milanese figure.

The fief of Porlezza, from the fifteenth century onwards, was worth little more than the title: when in 1446 the Rusconi obtained it together with the rights of rent and toll, the pieve of Porlezza bought those rights at once, so that later feudal lords were left mainly with the name. The village has had to reckon instead with water: the Avanzone, a stream of small flow, in September 1828 flooded the whole of the old borough, and in 1911 it was the Rezzo that remade the geography of the lakeside area.