Taceno

Taceno stood on the border between two states and gained from it twice. During the territorial disputes between the Duchy of Milan and the Serenissima, and until 1577, the village held both a podestà's seat and a vice-prefecture. Then the people of Taceno crossed that border themselves: many emigrated into the territories of the Republic of Venice, and it was their money that paid, between the 16th and the 18th centuries, for the rebuilding of the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta, attested in the 13th century as Santa Maria in Taxeno and a parish since 1406. The bell tower with its loggia was raised in three years from 1631; in the dome there is a fresco by Giovanni Maria Tagliaferri of 1684.

In 1809 the annexation of Margno and Parlasco brought the comune to 747 inhabitants; today the two villages are comuni of their own again, and by 1853 Taceno was already down to 478. At the end of the 19th century all the mayors of the Valsassina asked for a railway to link Taceno with Lecco: it was never built. What came instead were bathers, for the waters of Tartavalle, and through the whole of the 20th century the village lived on hotels: the Hotel Tartavalle, closed for more than thirty years and later burnt, can still be seen. Today the valley works mostly in metal, and in summer the parish church holds chamber and organ concerts.