HISTORY OF COMO
The establishment of
Como (Novum Comum) by the Romans date back to 59a.C., even if the area has been inhabited since the antiquity by the Etruscans and Celts. With the fall of the Roman Empire,
Como suffers the invasions of
Goti, Longobardi and Franchi. In 1127 during the battle against Milan,
Como is defeated and destroyed. It forms an alliance with
Federico Barbarossa, is reconstructed and takes part in the destruction of Milan in 1162. Between 1300 and 1400
Como passes under the domination of the
Visconti and the
Sforza. In 1500 suffers the heavy Spanish domination that impoverishes it economically and demographically. With the Austrians in 1700
Como retakes the mercantile activity and sees an economic growth. The scientific progresses and the new politic ideologies didn’t obstruct that the ruin and the occupations overwhelmed the other populations since, between 1796 and 1797, the Napoleonic troops, that took the place of the Austrians, operated a new drainage of taxes extorted to the commons thought a new organ: the General Administration of Lombardy, constituted on August 1796. The new administrative territorial organization, settled by France, saw
Como centre of the department of
Lario comprising the ancient
comasco, the valley of
Intelvi, the feuds of
Campione, Civenna, Limonta e Valsolda. At the beginning of the XIX century, the four districts which constituted the area of the ancient Holy Bodies of
Como, the Mount
Olimpino, Sagnino, Tavernola e Ponte Chiasso, began to appear as autonomous social entities. This practice of reorder, united to the concession of benefits thanks the administrative autonomy, consolidated with the advent of the Italian Republic in 1802 and with the proclamation of the Reign of Italy in 1805. The customs French policy interrupted the contacts with the German tradesmen and as the communal balances presented precarious conditions, like Spain, also the new government carried out expropriations only to fill the own finances. The fall of Napoleon, in 1814, accompanied the fall of the Reign of Italy. The Congress of Vienna leaded to a new arrangement of the
Lombardo-Veneto Reign under Austria, that abolished the departments and created the provinces:
Como, not more as lead of the department of
Lario, became main town of province and centre of an imperial delegation. The Austrians restored their rigid and repressive government. In these years, the physicist
Alessandro Volta, already professor of the school of
Como, discovered the dynamic electricity and realized the battery. In artistic field, the ideals of the XIX century were translated in neoclassicism, architecturally represented by the Church of Saint
Cecilia. With the end of the Napoleonic wars, a new negative phase was opened. The return of the troops coincided with the increase of unemployment and the beginning of the first crisis of the XIX century, to which followed those ones of 1825, 1836 and 1845-47. The heavy curtain of the Austrian domination again on Italy, didn’t carried only prosperity but also a not free government. The opposition against the absolutistic reigns shook the congress building of Vienna making the risings, which founded Como in first line, started: during the explosion of 1848 the city showed, in combination with Milan, five valorous days of insurrection, which leaded to the freedom of the city. The anti-Austrian feeling exploded violently after the Italian defeat in the first war of independence and
Vittorio Emanuele II realized the so waited liberation of Italy, to the cause of which contributed the whole country. Particularly Como remembers
Giuseppe Sirtori, Paolo Carcano and the captain De Cristoforis, fallen in the battle of
S. Fermo and to who is dedicated the police station.
Como became one of the richest commons. The agricultural demands bound to the industry of silk favoured the development of mulberry-tree cultivation that had a formidable impulse from the XIX century. The elevate rhythm of economic growth was based on the diffusion of spinning mill and mechanic looms, on mineral fuel and, above all, on the steam machine. At the exposition of Paris in 1990 the companies Bernasconi, Carcano, Musa and Stucchi of Como were widely represented and, from 1904, the number of mechanic looms of
Como surpassed the one of Milan and reached also the English market. The development of the twisting techniques reunited in Como the 81,3% of the entire activity of the country: the abundance of sources of plumbing energy made the combination spinning-twisting more easy that elsewhere. In 1922-23 the collapse of the breeding of silk-worm pointed the end of a great page of the lombardian agriculture history defined then by the word crisis of 1929.In the province of
Como the slump of prices of cocoons caused the disappearance of the breeding and if the spinning suffers an inversion of tendency, the activities of twisting and weaving, using different fibres, kept strong. In the same period the Great Council of Fascism was carried out. At
Como the fascist movement was constituted in 1920 and in vain miners and mill-men of
Introbio and
Cortabio opposed agaist its penetration. In 1940 in the whole larian area, the partisan struggle caught fire. At the end of ’45 the administration allied with the northern provinces took an end and the Republic was voted. Today the economic activities in growth are, besides the traditional industry of silk, the advanced tertiary and tourism. The city is become also a university pole with the establishment in 1988 of the University of Studies of the
Insubria, that has a strong bond with the territory: the percentage of the matriculations of 2000-2001 came for the 53,4% from the province herself. At
Villa Erba, at
Cernobbio, on March and on October the manifestations Idea
Como and
Como Fashion, in which silk is protagonist, confirm both the economic vitality and how the ancient production continues to differentiate the city. The eclecticism of
Como is in having increased the value of the beauties of the scenery and the mildness, the ancient tradition of its industry and its economic potential, together with the cultural aspects. The position, the historical tradition, the net of transports, the easy supplying of energy are the reasons of its wealth: the men’s intelligence, the engagement and a cohesion will have guided in centuries the city towards a civil and economic success that neither the
Visconti or Spain nor the Austrian or Napoleonic government succeeded to discourage.
