In 905 the archbishop of Milan held a trial here, and the document recording it says where: in the aula solarii Curtis sancti Ambrosii, que Belano dicitur, the sunny hall of the court of Sant'Ambrogio called Belano, by the lake of Como. It was the residence from which the archbishop administered civil justice, and that phrase is the earliest description of Bellano we possess: not a castle, not a church, but a room full of sunlight in which it was decided who was in the right.
Three thousand five hundred and eighty-three inhabitants in the province of Lecco, on the eastern shore of Lake Como, where the Pioverna comes out of the Valsassina carving its gorge. The medieval town mattered: walls, a Pretorio, its own statutes from 1370 and grammar schools attested from 1417. In 1480 the fief went to Pietro II Dal Verme, who in 1485 died poisoned by his wife; the inheritance passed to her, Chiara Sforza, who kept control until her own death in 1530. On the first of January 2020 Bellano incorporated the municipality of Vendrogno, and in 2021 the coat of arms was lengthened to make room for it.
Risotto alla Milanese
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Next up: Saints Nazarius and Celsus, and the procession of the Three Kings, Wednesday 28 July
Nearest airport: Bergamo Orio al Serio, 51 km away
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📅 Every year, on 28 July
Bellano celebrates Saints Nazarius and Celsus on 28 July. For four centuries, even through wars and hardship, the people of Bellano have staged the procession of the Three Kings, the Pese race and the bonfire on the pier.
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