Verbania

Information and places of interest

The city stands on a triangular promontory in the center of Lake Maggiore that marks the northern end of the Borromean Gulf, into which the Toce flows. On the southwestern shore are the towns of Pallanza and Suna, towards the east, separated by the course of the San Bernardino stream, is the town of Intra, while to the north is the hamlet of Trobaso. In the hilly area are the hamlets of Zoverallo, Antoliva and Biganzolo while on Monte Rosso is the hamlet of Cavandone.

HISTORY

The area has been inhabited since prehistoric times.
In the 11th century Pallanza and Intra were first owned by the bishops of Novara, then by the counts of Pombia and then by the da Castello family.
Towards the end of the 14th century, the lake territories became part of the Duchy of Milan and were broken up into various fiefdoms, of which the Borromeo family obtained the majority, however Pallanza remained exempt from feudal jurisdiction until 1620.
In 1714, with the Peace of Rastatt, the lake territories passed under the Habsburgs and in 1743 the entire western shore of Lake Maggiore was ceded to the Savoy. In 1751, the province of Alto Novarese was created with Pallanza as its capital.
Already in the 18th century, the first signs of future industrialization began to appear with the opening, in 1808, of the first mechanical spinning mill, which was followed by other spinning, weaving, dyeing, paper mills and hat factories.
In the second half of the 19th century, the construction of villas began on the panoramic promontory of Castagnola, which juts out into the lake between Intra and Pallanza, following the construction of the coastal road in 1840.
The municipality of Verbania was born on April 4, 1939, by will of Benito Mussolini, from the union of the municipalities of Intra and Pallanza, and became the provincial capital in 1992, assuming the title of city starting from 2007. The name was created at the time of the creation of the municipality deriving it from Verbanis, the Latin name for Lake Maggiore.

PLACES OF INTEREST

- ORATORY OF SAN REMIGIO: declared a national monument in 1908, it is a Romanesque oratory located on top of the promontory of Castagnola which dates back to the first half of the 11th century and 12th century. A portico was added to this in the 14th century.

- CHIESA DI MADONNA DI CAMPAGNA: recognized as a national monument, it is a Renaissance-style church designed in the first half of the 16th century on the site of a pre-existing Romanesque building, of which only the bell tower remains.

- BASILICA DI SAN VITTORE: located in the historic center, it was built on the same site where there was an ancient Christian church from the 5th century. It took on the function of the city's main church with the proclamation of San Vittore as patron saint of Verbania in 1992.

- CHIESA COLLEGIATA DI SAN LEONARDO: located on the lakeside of Pallanza, it was built between 1535 and 1590. The bell tower was built in several stages (the first part dates back to the 16th century, the final part was built in 1689).

- PARISH CHURCH OF SANTO STEFANO: located in the Villa a Pallanza district, it was built in the second half of the 12th century and partially rebuilt in the 17th century. Inside it is preserved the Ara delle Matrone, a Roman cippus in Candoglia marble dating back to the first half of the 1st century depicting a scene of sacrifice surmounted by an epigraph.

- ORATORY OF SS FABIANO AND SEBASTIANO: located in front of the Suna lakefront, it dates back to the 12th century and was renovated and expanded in the 17th and 18th centuries by adding the portico and the staircase that goes up from the lake to the church.

- METHODIST EVANGELICAL CHURCH: located in the historic center of Intra, inaugurated in 1892, its bell tower is noticeable which is a point of reference for those entering Intra both from the road and from the lake.

- PALAZZO VIANI DUGNANI: a baroque-style palace built in the 16th century by the Viani family, which today houses the LANDSCAPE MUSEUM.

- LANDSCAPE MUSEUM: born as a historical and artistic museum of Verbano and the adjacent Valleys, it was officially inaugurated in 1909, and then changed its location and name in 1914. Among the first initiatives was the Landscape Art Gallery, intended to host views of the territory created by 19th-century and contemporary artists.
After a period of crisis following the death of the founder, the museum's activity regained strength towards the end of the 1930s after the death of Paolo Troubetzkoy, as his heirs donated to the Museum all the works preserved in the Parisian studio and in the one in Suna.
Over time, the collections continued to grow. In 1961, the archaeological materials excavated in Ornavasso in the last decade of the 19th century arrived at the Museum.
After Elide Ceretti's death, her home complex was left to the Museum to become an educational space, and it then became the Museum's headquarters for exhibition events related to contemporary art, artist residencies and various laboratory activities and artistic experimentation and research.
The section dedicated to painting hosts some frescoes dating back to the 15th century and paintings from the 15th to the 20th century, most of Lombard or Piedmontese origin, dating from the late 18th century to the late 19th century.
In the sculpture section, a prominent position is occupied by the collection of 342 works by Troubetzkoy, including preparatory works in plaster and sculptures in marble, bronze, wax and raw earth.
At the same time as the organization of some important exhibition events, the establishment of a photography section began, aimed at collecting documentation capable of illustrating the Verbano territory in the transformations undergone by its landscape and in the life of its inhabitants.
Starting in 1982, the Museum began to collect both professional and amateur material. The collection was increased until the 1990s and today the fund consists of approximately 15,000 units. The photographs cover a time span that goes from the mid-19th century to the 1990s. In the variety of subjects, different thematic nuclei can be identified: local history events (war, school, festivals, sports, devotional forms), Verbano landscape, local and national artistic heritage, images that document the previous installations and works of the Museum, photographic portraits of famous people or local personalities, family photographs.
The museum includes a separate archaeology section at the town hall of the municipality of Ornavasso in which the finds discovered during the excavations that brought to light two necropolises belonging to the Leponzi in the municipality of Ornavasso are preserved. A first group of tombs dating back to the 2nd-1st century BC and a second group including 165 tombs dating back to the 1st century BC-1st century AD.
The preserved finds include female ornaments in gold, silver and glass paste and Celtic swords in iron, spearheads and javelins, everyday objects and bronze pottery of Etruscan production.

- PALAZZO DI CITTA’: institutional seat of the Municipality, a 19th-century building with a notable portico.

- VILLA GIULIA: owned by the municipality, it hosts performances, exhibitions and conferences, with a garden open to the public overlooking the lake.

- VILLA SAN REMIGIO: in Neapolitan Baroque style, with an adjoining park, owned by the Piedmont Region, it houses regional offices.

- VILLA RUSCONI-CLERICI: the ancient home of Stefano Türr, a Hungarian soldier and politician known in Italy for his large role in the Alpine Hunters' campaign and the Expedition of the Thousand.

- WATER RESEARCH INSITUTE: located in Pallanza, it carries out research activities in the sectors of management and protection of water resources and in the development of methodologies and technologies for water purification and potabilization.

- THEATER IL MAGGIORE: inaugurated on June 12, 2016, located on the shore of Lake Maggiore, it was born from the architect's desire to create a work of art that would remain impressed in the minds of visitors. Placed in a panoramic position, Il Maggiore dialogues harmoniously with the city and the surrounding landscape.
The structure is striking for its unique shapes. The complex is made up of four volumes, with titanium zinc cladding, evoking the stones placed on the banks of the lake and the adjacent river. These are arranged one next to the other, directly overlooking the lake and the large external Arena, used during the summer for concerts, shows and screenings, which can accommodate up to 1600 people.
Inside, the structure, in addition to offering a theater hall with more than 500 seats, other smaller rooms and a large foyer, is characterized by the adaptability of its spaces. Through a series of movements it is possible to connect the foyer with the theater creating a room for over 900 guests. Thanks to the same technology, the stage proscenium can be lowered to form a large orchestra pit.

- LA CASA DEL LAGO MUSEUM: it is an interactive museum that offers the opportunity to inhabit the lake ecosystem through guided tours and educational workshops of a scientific, artistic, technological and cultural nature, whose activities are structured by age groups and categories of interlocutors and are aimed at all schools, tourists and those who live on the lake shores.
La Casa del Lago aims to be a place where you can listen to stories, see objects and do experiments that have to do with fresh water and its inhabitants, of any species and size.
Multimedia rooms: an amazing journey through sounds, images and evocative contexts to discover the lake above, below and beyond the level of its waters. There are two rooms, the first is a diorama of the reed ecosystem while the second is an immersion in the depths of the lake where, lying down, you can admire the numerous inhabitants that populate the waters or the suggestions created by plays of light and shadow.
Exhibition rooms: the fishing objects are told through the recorded voices of children. You can see tools used for fishing and for building boats.

- VILLA TARANTO BOTANICAL GARDENS: located between Pallanza and Intra, created in 1931 with the project of creating an English garden on Italian soil. Dozens of botanical specimens were imported from all over the world, until the completion of the work in 1940. Currently the gardens include specimens of about 1,000 plants and about 20,000 varieties and species of botanical interest.
Herbarium: in the splendid eclectic-style building of the former gatehouse of the Botanical Gardens, precious and delicate "natural paintings" are exhibited. The herbarium includes 43 display cases in which it is possible to admire species of spontaneous flora from the United Kingdom collected and classified.
Entrance avenue: extraordinary compact sequence of rare specimens of conifers from all over the world.
Fountain of the Putti: so called for the sculptures that adorn it. In spring it is surrounded by multicolored blooms among which you can admire the Cornuta violets and the Obconica primroses. In summer the same fountain is wrapped by the gigantic leaves of the Colocasia antiquorum called "elephant ear".
Labyrinth of Dahlias: from summer to autumn it fascinates and enchants visitors with the spectacle of over 1700 plants in bloom. Among the 350 varieties, the large-flowered decorative ones stand out, the pompons, whose spherical honeycomb flower heads do not reach 5 mm in diameter and the showy Emery Paul with an intense garnet red color.
Serra Victoria and Vertical Garden: Victoria Cruziana, originally from Paraguay, is among the tropical and subtropical plants grown in greenhouses. The enormous equatorial water lily is the queen of aquatic plants and is visible to the public from June to late October. Its leaves are almost two meters in diameter and can support the weight of about 10 kg. In the background of the greenhouse you can admire the Vertical Garden, a structure covered with plant essences that are rooted on panels of fibrous material.
Mausoleum: built in 1965, the wonderful polychrome windows depicting flowers and in the center the image of Saint Anthony of Padua, to whom the chapel is dedicated.
Valletta: artificially excavated in 1935 and overlooked by a 35-meter long bridge, with a single arch. The plant decoration, in addition to tree brooms, cascades of Cotoneaster horizontalis and much more, also includes the Davidia involucrata, picturesquely called "the handkerchief tree".
Villa: the style is inspired by Normandy architecture. The soft English lawn in front is brightened by a gushing fountain.
Terraced gardens: waterfalls and water features alternate with flowerbeds of annual plants, creating an enchanting alternation of shapes and colors.
Lotus flower: a sinuous basin hosts the Nelumbo nucifera, the lotus flower, with fleshy and scented petals of a shaded pink color. A sacred flower to Buddhists and a symbol of India, its leaves of about 50/60 cm are impermeable to water and rise over a meter and a half in an ovoid basin.

- FONDOTOCE NATURE RESERVE: protected nature reserve along the shore of Lake Maggiore and the final stretch of the Toce river, a highly urbanized area within which the protected area is configured as the last bastion of wetland. These peculiarities make this environment even more precious, characterized by a high degree of biodiversity reflected in the different animal classes that frequent it. In fact, it ranges from reptiles (pond turtle, water snake, whip snake, green lizard, slow worm), to amphibians (green frog, crested newt), to mammals (foxes, badgers, martens, weasels), to arrive at the numerous different species of insects.
Natural environment: in the nature reserve the reed bed is the most represented environment, consisting almost essentially of marsh reeds and offers an ideal ecosystem for the reproduction of numerous lake fish (carp, pike, tench) and for the nesting and wintering of about a hundred bird species.
As regards the flora, to date about 240 species have been recorded, including various types of willow, two rare ferns and a rich aquatic vegetation. A water chestnut belongs to this last group and can only be found in this area.
Visit: to help visitors get closer to the most hidden and suggestive places of the reserve and to facilitate the observation of its inhabitants, an easy flat path has been created, which can be covered in about an hour.

- PARK OF MEMORY AND PEACE: it stands on the site where on 20 June 1944 the Nazis shot 43 partisans, many of whom were prisoners from the roundup of Val Grande.
A tall cross, as a symbol of sacrifice, dominates the site almost as if to protect the long wall that bears over 1200 names of fallen partisans.
In front of the cross there is a granite urn containing human ashes from the Mauthausen extermination camp.

- FATTORIA DEL TOCE: it is an Educational Farm with a park founded in 2002 that can be simply visited or you can participate in workshops, alone or with your family.
Here you can walk through numerous varieties of plants typical of Verbano such as camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons but also maples, centuries-old olive trees and meet countless animals, especially farm animals. It is visited every year by schools, groups, families, experts in the sector or tourists, anyone who wants to walk observing many different types of plants and animals housed in welcoming shelters, numerous breeds of poultry and the 43 breeds of rabbits present in the national register.

- TOCE PARK: immersed in the greenery on the banks of the Toce river, there are horses and ponies with which you can spend some time and take fun and relaxing rides in a carriage and carriage. In addition, in the 100% electric car and quad circuits, you can unleash your adrenaline in perfect green style.