Torno has been bigger than this. Between the thirteenth and the sixteenth century, under the Humiliati, it was one of the richest wool towns on the lake, with its guilds and its boats, and it reached some five thousand inhabitants: enough to quarrel with Como. In the Italian Wars the town sided with the French and Como with the Sforza and the Spanish. On the seventh of September 1515 Torno was sacked; on the eleventh of June 1522 troops from Como and Spain destroyed almost all of it. The wool trade ended there, and people began to leave: first for the Lugano area and the Bergamo valleys, later for France and Germany. Today there are a thousand inhabitants.
Of those battles the lake has given back the iron: weapons fished up in 1870 in front of the harbour, which was then fortified, and in 1995 a spearhead forty-four centimetres long, now kept in the town hall. Another Torno first is recent instead: in 1920 the first Alpini group in Italy was founded here.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Torno
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Torno, but an easy day trip away.