Ronago

Ronago stands on the Swiss border, and the border made its history twice. The first time for good: documents of 1508 and 1511 record maize being grown in the valley of Chiasso Maggiore, the oldest such records in Lombardy, brought here by German horse dealers who came down to the horse fair just beyond the pass; that maize was nicknamed «frumento carlone», where carlone, from the German, means big. The second time for ill: from 1516, when the Ticino passed to Switzerland, the Ronago crossing became one of the favourite routes for smuggling grain towards Lugano, and the trial papers in Milan and Bellinzona are full of clashes between rival gangs and between smugglers and the Spanish soldiers on guard.

But the thing best remembered here is a gate. After 1803, when the Canton Ticino became independent and made no provision at all for newborns, at night the couriers would carry Ticinese babies as far as the fortified farm court of Campersico and leave them outside the door, mostly asleep in a basket, for someone to pick up: between the eighteen-twenties and the eighteen-seventies there were more than a thousand of them. They were baptised in the church of Ronago and then taken to the foundling hospital in Como. Since 1 January 2024 Ronago is no longer a comune of its own: it has merged with Uggiate-Trevano into the new comune of Uggiate con Ronago.