Como tourist information
The Comacine Masters were the most shining pride of Como, actually of the whole old Como diocese (which is very wide). They were already mentioned by Rodari (7th century) and by Liutprando as magistri cummageni or cumacini or cummacini. They were master builders and workers, members of craft guilds of builders and stone cutters, who used scaffoldings and other instruments and worked mainly in the territory of Lake Como and Ceresio. These guilds anticipated a building, plastic, pictorial and decorative tradition that lasted over 1000 years, up to 1700 and even longer. This tradition stood out in some areas: In Val d'Intelvi (antelamici and then intelvesi masters: building, decoration, stucco, scagliola); on the shores of Lake Ceresio (campionesi masters: sculpture and architecture; porlezzesi masters: sculpture) and in the Ticino canton, near Como. The dispersion of these masters was huge, unimaginable. Their works are now displayed in Russia, Poland, Germany, Austria, nearly all over Europe. As for Italy, suffice it to remember these names: Benedetto Antelami (from Val d'Intelvi); families as the Rodari from Maroggia, the Solari from Carona and Campione, the Gagini from Bissorie; Domenico Fontana from Melide, Guglielmo della Porta from Porlezza, Baldassarre Longhena from Maroggia, Francesco Borromini from Bissone.
Seventh son of the noble Filippo from Como and of donna Maria Maddalena (Counts Inzaghi), Alessandro Volta was born in Como in the district of Porta Nuova, now Via Volta 62, on the 18th February 1745. He was baptized in the nearby church of St. Donnino, where adult and already famous he taught catechism to the children. He spent his early childhood without uttering a word in Ludovico Monti's house, craftsman and barometer maker, at N. 5 of present Via Volta in Brunate, a village on the hill that dominates the town and the lake as a balcony full of flowers. Some years after his return home, a sonorous No said to refuse a bitter drink revealed that he was not dumb. However, he was already seven or eight, when he began to speak fluently. He lost his father prematurely and, being in financial straits, he, his mother and his three sisters stayed with the uncle canon Alessandro. He supported them and provided for the education of the boy, admiring his untiring curiosity and keen intelligence. When about twelve, Alessandro risked drowning while searching for a gold vein in a brook. He found some mica and learned that all that glitters is not gold. When seventeen, he had a sound classical knowledge, wrote poems in Latin and French and successfully mixed with elegant salons. However, he also cultivated scientific-naturalistic studies and above all those concerning electrical phenomena with the enthusiasm of an autodidact, thus disappointing his uncle, who wanted him to become a notary, and the Jesuit Father Bonesi, his teacher, who wished he would embark on an ecclesiastic carrier. Alessandro was above all interested in experimental research and was grateful to Cesare Gattoni, schoolmate of his and fond of scientific studies too, who provided him with books and instruments, and some years later with the south tower of the walls as a laboratory. That tower is now called Gattoni Tower. In the second half of the 18th century, just before the French Revolution wiped out the breezy and frivolous noble world, little was known about electrical phenomena, in spite of the scientists' attention and the curiosity aroused by the electrifying shows in salons and fairs. Electricity was considered an amusement: how amusing it was to see a simpleton getting a shock while kissing a live lady standing on an insulating footboard! Electricity was not only a vogue of this century: the attractive power of yellow amber (a fossile resin deriving from conifers, the Greek name of which, Electron, created the world electricity) was already known by Talete in 600 BC and later described by Plinio the Old in the 1st century AD. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, this phenomenon, the unexplained ones of the fire of St. Elmo and of the deflexion of the compass needle from its pole had caused only philosophical discussions. The ferments of the 17th-century scientific revolution allowed the flourishing and growth of studies in this field and the construction of suitable instruments. The electrostatic machine invented by Otto von Guericke in 1660, the bottle of Leyda by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1745 and the lightning conductor by Benjamine Franklin in 1742, all contributed to the electrostatics knowledge. They also allowed to prove that all bodies can be electrified; that there are conductors and insulators; that electricity is vitreous or resinous, i.e. positive or negative, according to the rubbed material; that two positive/negative charges repel themselves while opposite charges attract themselves. However, though able to accumulate large quantities of electric charges, these instruments had very short effects. Alessandro was fascinated by the misterious power that could be trapped in a bottle and that he perceived in the roar of storms as well as in the light opening of the golden leaflets of the electroscope. He eagerly read the writings of Abbot Nollet, van Musschenbroek and Beccaria, and with simple objects such as elderberries, silk threads, ink pots, oil fried kindlings he built instruments and verified the theories of great masters such as Gilbert, von Kleist, Winkler, van Musschenbroek, Canton and Wilke, Franklin, Aepinus, Beccaria. In 1763, he wrote to Abbot Nollet expounding a theory (later abandoned) concerning a common origin of electrical and Newtonian phenomena and the abbot encouraged him to continue his research. Alessandro attracted the scientists' attention in 1769, when he sent to Beccaria a memo in Latin. Here, according to the theories on influence phenomena by Franklin, Wilke and Aepinus, he attacked Beccaria's theory on avenging (i.e. regenerated) electricity stating that the electrical balance is caused by the saturation of attractive forces. This was a start for further, extraordinary applications. In October 1774, Governor Firmian, who represented in Lombardy the government of Mary Theresa of Austria, appointed A. Volta vice supervisor of the Royal Schools in Como. On the 10th June 1775, A. Volta sent an exemplar of a simple electroctatic machine he had built and called perpetual electrophorus to the famous English chemist Priestley (the finder of oxygen, ammonia and carbon oxide). Thanks to influence, once electrified it never lost its charge and allowed to produce elettrical discharges without a constant rubbing. The experiment of the perpetual electrophorus is the following. The electrophorus is made up of a resin disc (sealing wax, celluloid) contained in a metal holder and of a metal disc with an insulating handle (glass). The resin, rubbed with a cloth or leather, becomes negatively electrified. The metal disc, if moved near to the resin, moves by induction the positive charge to the lower surface and the negative one to the upper. If you touch with your fingers the upper part of the metal disc, the electrons are released and only the positive charge remains. The metal disc is now charged with positive electricity; if you raise it and move a fingertip near it, a spark goes off. This invention spread far and wide in the scientific world and Count Firmian rewarded Volta for his sublime and useful discovery appointing him experimental phisics teacher at the Royal Gymnasium in Como, without degree nor competition. In 1776, Volta noticed near Angera some gas bubbles emanating from the muddy ground of the marshes along Lake Maggiore. He collected them in an upturn cruet and found that, if mixed with common air, they flared up when in contact with a spark originated by a bottle of Leyda. In contrast to the theories of the time, he deduced and demonstrated that these vapours, now known as methane, were of organic origin and called them marsh inflammable air. Thanks to his practical mind, he seeked useful implementations: in 1777 he built the electric air inflammable gun. It was a flask with a missile held in the neck by a cloth plug and with two corks on the bottom crossed by two brass threads, whose vapours were used as a detonating gas. An electric spark of an electrophorus or of a bottle of Leyda lighted them causing a violent burst and the resulting emission of the missile. In advance of his time, he ingeniously realized the possibility of transmitting the electricity through wires and wrote to Father Barletti: "I think it could be possible to fire a shot in Milan through a bottle of Leyda discharged in Como". He had thousands of ideas that resulted in eternal lamps, muskets and arquebuses for hunting, an ingenious electric lamp lighter and above all, in 1779, in a variation of his gun: the eudiometer, a very precise instrument still used to analyse inflammable gases and air purity. Count Firmian noted his brilliant results and, in 1778, appointed Volta experimental professor of phisics at the University of Pavia. In 1777, 1781-82 and 1784, Count Firmian rewarded his activity allowing and subsidizing his scientific journeys throughout Switzerland, Alsace, Holland, France, Great Britain, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Volta could consequently see many of the greatest foreign scientists, perform experiments on electrification through evaporation with Lavoisier and Laplace. He was also received by the Belgian rulers and by Josef II, the successor of Mary Theresa, who awarded him a gold medal and a huge contribution for his journeys. Meanwhile, Volta continued his research and scrupulously prepared his university lessons. In 1780, he studied the phenomenon of the electric condensation. By applying an electrophorus on an electrometer, he built the condenser, an instrument used to record even the smallest electricity traces which are not detacted by common electroscopes and provided with an higher electric capacity than any normal conductor. This instrument enabled Volta to study the atmospheric electricity and to state that the atmosphere is never completely devoid of electricity. It also allowed him to define if electricity was positive or negative through attractions and repulsions. In 1785, Alessandro, appointed Magnificent Rector by the students of Pavia, increased the prestige and fame of the university engaging clever Italian and foreign teachers and providing for construction works and the enlargement of lecture halls. He also bought new scientific instruments and continued to hold his phisics lectures, which attracted more and more students of any nationality. His research spread even into metrology. He built his microelectrometers availing himself of new concepts, such as those of tension and capacity. He also dealt with electric meteorology and exhaustively wrote about it in his letters to Lichtemberg in 1787. In this fruitful decade, Alessandro was shaken by two sad events: his mother died in 1782 and in 1789 he fell in love with an opera singer, who he could not marry because of his family and his social position. In 1794, in the church of S. Provino in Como, he married donna Teresa Pellegrini, daughter of Ludovico, a royal delegate. She was a faithful and loving wife lifelong. 1789: the severe vigilance of Austrian police could not prevent news from being spread into Lombardy, according to which the furious Parisian population had taken possess of the Bastille and the National Assembly had abolished feudal rights. But a silent revolution was about to start too and it would transform the world. Alessandro did not know yet, that he would be its author. 1786 1791: Luigi Galvani, doctor and professor of anatomy at the university of Bologna, performed experiments of electric conduction on dead and flayed frogs. He noted quick muscular contractions when lumbar nerves and thigh muscles were linked at the same time by a compass or a bimetallic arc. He understood that the phenomenon resulted from the animal electricity gathered in the frog and then discharged through the arc. In 1791, he published the result of his studies. Alessandro Volta, one of his first supporters, repeated the experiments. A more careful examination and scrupulous quantitative analyses persuaded him that the electrical imbalance, i.e. the electromotive energy, did not originate from the frog but from the contact of the two metals, and that the dead frog acted as a revealing electroscope and not as a condenser charged with animal electricity. Galvani continued to support his own theory: the scientific world was then divided into Galvani's and Volta's supporters. This discussion continued even after Galvani's death and the invenction of the pile. Volta redoubled his experiments to obtain a conclusive evidence, thus discovering that the contact of different conductors creates electricity. In 1792, he informed Abbot Tommaselli of his discovery and wrote to von Marum the features of the continuous electricity of electromotive pairs of disks and glasses. Meanwhile, he devoted himself to thermological research and in 1793 he published the law of the uniform thermal expansion of the air at a constant pressure, roughly determining the coefficient. Nine years later, Gay-Lussac generalized this law for all gases. In France things were coming to a head. In 1792, the French army repelled the Austrian-Prussian troops in Valmy and penetrated into the Nice area and Savoy. The republic was proclaimed in Paris. Alessandro Volta, troubled, described with dismay and pity the exodus of the exiles across Piedmont, which was invaded by the French. 1793: Louis XVI, King of France, and his wife Antonietta, sister of Emperor Leopold II of Austria, payed for their forefathers' faults on the block. 1794: Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, Volta's great friend, was guillotined. In spite of the news of massacres and sacks, Volta continued to live with clearness and strictness. In 1795, six years before J. Dalton, he published three laws about vapour tension and in 1796, he stated the general principle of contact electricity in a letter to Mr Cren. In May 1796, Alessandro Volta and Gianbattista Giovio, as decurions of the General Council in Como, were given the task of going to Milan on behalf of the town to honour General Bonaparte, who had occupied Lombardy. The university reopening and the population's future hung on him. Volta was troubled. He reflected on the generosity of the Austrian friends: what did Napoleon have in store? Bonaparte reopened the University and turned the Cispadane and Transpadane Republics, freely established by the Italian Jacobins, into a satellite state of France, the Cisalpine Republic. In May 1799, while Napoleon was fighting the Egyptian campaign, the Russian Savarov, Italy's head of the second coalition against France, occupied Milan again. 1799 was a difficult year for Alessandro. The many wars had reduced his income, and his salary, already diminuished by the French, had been suspended, as the Austrian government, displeased with the Jacobin excesses of some teachers, had closed the University, fired all teachers and imprisoned the most riotous. He returned to Como, where his famiy, increased by the birth of his third child, and his experiments waited for him. Though Galvani had died the previous year, Volta needed his own experiments to demonstrate his theories with facts. He felt sure that he was right. When Galvani was still alive, Volta had used even the tongue, which is a muscle too, to test the principle of contact. He had thus discovered that a thin tin plate placed on the tip of the tongue and put in contact with a silver coin more inside produced a sourish taste similar to that originated by the negative discharge of a small bottle of Leyda. When he exchanged their positions, the taste produced was bitterish like that of a positive discharge. He had understood that he had stimulated the taste nerve in the same way as Galliani had stimulated the nerve of muscular contraction in the frogs: by the contact of the two metals. To show that this is animal electricity I will take away the two metals, had retorted Galvani when Volta had informed him. He had obtained weak contractions even without the bimetallic arc, by linking the frog's lumbar nerves with its crural muscles. Galvani's supporters were then sure they had won, but Volta had replayed: This is not a conclusive evidence. Nerves and muscles represent two different bodies and the principle of contact counts for them too. There are less contractions because there is a smaller potential difference. And he had concluded: It is enough to take away the frog. Using his exceptional condenser fitted with an electroscope, he had diverted the electroscope only with the bimetallic couple. He had thus confirmed the principle of contact and had began a long set of experiments on all kinds of metals and fluid substances, to define the electrically active and neutral combinations. He had discovered that the electromotive forces started by the contact of different metals added using pairs of two metals separated by a sour fluid. On a grey day of December 1799, while Napoleon had just become First Consul of France with a coup d'état and was preparing to conquer the world, Alessandro was trying to achieve fame in his house in Como. He assembled a series of copper and zinc discs in pairs, separating each pair witha sheet of pasteboard soaked in an acidulated solution. In other words, he piled them up always in the same order (zinc, copper, acidulated water) so that the two extremes were a zinc disc (negative pole) and a copper one (positive pole). The potential differences of each couple added and if the two poles were moved near, they sparked. But, as he linked the top disc with the bottom one through two copper wires, something extraordinary happened: electricity began to flow between the two poles generating a continuous current. The pile, the artificial electric organ as its inventor called it, the evidence and application of the principle of contact, was ready. Alessandro observed that his device worked in the same way if he used several cups containing acidulated water and immersed a piece of copper and of zinc (or silver and tin) in each cup. The zinc in each cup was connected electrically to the copper of an adjacent cup and the cups arranged in a circle. At the two extremes, there were a piece of copper and one of zinc. On the 20th March 1800, he informed Sir Banks, of the Royal Society of London, of his two devices: that of the pile and that of the crown of cups. The news aroused enthusiasm and excited admiration in the scientific world as the pile, beyond generating a constant and regular current, which was impossible with electrostatic machines, opened new important research horizons in the phisics field. It allowed to carry out the first studies on electrochemistry and on the formation of the electric arc, to produce the electrolysis and to use electricity in long distance communications. The discovery of electromagnetism added to these, with the resulting important inventions of the telegraph, the dynamo and the engine, on which the modern technological civilization is based. Napoleon, who had reoccupied Lombardy and re-established the Cisalpine Republic in June 1800 (which was transformed into Reign of Italy in 1805, after he was appointed emperor), filled the phisicist from Como with honours. In November 1801, Napoleon called Volta to Paris, took part to the meetings at the National Institute, where the phisicist explained his invention, and then awarded him a gold medal and a yearly income. Between 1805 and 1810, he awarded him the Legion of Honour and the insignia of the Ordine della Corona di Ferro (Order of the Iron Crown) and appointed him Senator of the Reign of Italy, conferring him the title of count. Emperor Francis II, who took possession of Lombardy after Napoleon's death, honoured the scientist, maintained his pension of Reign Senator and of Professor and entrusted him to be at the head of the faculty of phisics mathematics at the University of Pavia. After inventing the pile, Alessandro continued his active life as a scientist and model inhabitant. He was modest, deeply religious, very helpful and had a high public and moral spirit. Thanks to him, the cultivation of potatoes was introduced and spread into Lombardy. Alessandro died in Como on the 5th May 1827. His body lies in the Mausoleo Voltiano (Voltian Mausoleum) of the cemetery in Camnago Volta, near his beloved summer house in Campora. In 1839, in his memory, the town of Como placed a monument by Pompeo Marchesi (a sculptor) in piazza Volta. In 1927, Como dedicated to him the lighthouse that still dominates the lake. The quiet waters of the lake mirror the beautiful Tempo Voltiano (Voltian Temple), munificent gift by Francesco Somaini from Lomazzo. He collected here Volta's heirlooms and instruments that survived the fire at the Electric Exhibition of 1899 and a faithful copy of the ones destroyed. In his honour, the unit of electromotive force was called Volt.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Brunate was only a little village with few houses and some small villas built in the wide natural amphitheatre overlooking Lake Montorfano and its plain. By the end of the same century, it had already grew into a fashionable holiday resort for the inhabitants of Como and the Milanese alike who used 'to spend the summer over there.' It was in this social and historical context that the idea for a railway construction took form. This idea soon turned into enthusiasm, desire for emulation, industrious will, spirit of enterprise. Finally, a group of holidaymakers and farsighted inhabitants of Brunate put forward a proposal which was to be reality in a few years' time: to build a funicular linking Como and Brunate. The proposal was accepted and preparations got under way. On 18 December 1891 the Joint-Stock Company for the Como-Brunate Funicular was founded. Its activity was frenetic. The board of directors met four-five times a month to discuss the submitted plans. The meetings were almost always called in a hall at the Casino Sociale Club in Como. The following August, out of due time, Mr. Valzelli, an engineer from Bergamo, sent his funicular plans. The ambitious engineering project for a funicular link between Como and Brunate was going to become reality. Finally, during the meeting on 24th December 1892, the Board of Directors decided: 'To choose the plains drawn up by Messrs Luigi and Giuseppe Villoresi, engineers.' On 4th January 1893, the building plans being already submitted to local authorities for approval, work began. It was to be completed by 1894, 22 months later. The new line was 953.33 metres long; a drop of 493.92 metres divided the top from the ground with an average gradient of 46% resulting from a minimum of 33% (to the ground) to a maximum of 55.10% (on the top). The station in Como was built in the shape of a chalet. The station in Brunate, completed in 1895, originally had a tiled canopy of wood which covered the end part of the line so as to protect the passenger entrance and exit from the carriages. The building consisted of a waiting room, an engineer room, a room containing the traction system and the windlass and a room containing the boilers. The funicular service was operated through two carriages fastened to both ends of a metal rope, 'so that one carriage travelled up when the other travelled down.' By the beginning of September 1894, the complex of the new railway had been completed and the carriages could fully work. On 24th September 1894, the Bishop of Como, Monsignor Carlo Andrea Ferrari - some days after being named Cardinal of Milan - went up to Brunate to bless the funicular. The solemn ceremony took place at 4pm and was followed by a sumptuous reception at the 'Spaini Chalet'. The temporary rail service started on 6th November 1894. Five days later, on 11th November, there was the official inauguration. The two carriages - 'Brunate' and 'Como' - were yellow . Some years later, an important technical change was made: steam traction was substituted for electric traction. 40 years after, the funicular was remodernised. A new two-storey building was constructed over an area of more than 400 square metres in no time. The new machinery was placed on the ground floor which offered a more suitable maintaining and operating space in case of emergency. On the left side, separated from the machinery room, a large storeroom was built; offices and the engineering shop were located on the first floor. Moreover, the rack was removed, the superstructure and the railway were completely rebuilt and the old carriages were replaced by new ones. The inauguration took place on 15th June 1935. The train journey duration was reduced from 18 minutes to six minutes. In 1951 the Como-Brunate Company, following the inspectorate instructions, replaced the carriages once again. Some years after, the driving pulley and breaks were replaced too. In 1970, the Company, as well as all public transport, went through a difficult period due to a sharp reduction in traffic. In 1981 most of the stock was put under public control. The new-founded GST Ltd conformed the whole system to the new safety standards by 1995.
