Como
People who shaped the city
Residents, visitors and the occasional passing genius — each with the addresses where their story is still standing.
Politics
Augustus
Founder of the Roman Empire and its first emperor, ruling from 27 BC until AD 14.
- Piazza San Fedele
Caroline of Brunswick
Princess of Wales, queen consort of George IV, and owner of Como’s Villa d’Este from 1815 to 1820.
- Villa d’Este
Frederick Barbarossa
Holy Roman Emperor whose alliance with Como enabled the reconstruction and expansion of the city’s fortifications.
- Frederician City Walls
- Porta Torre
Giorgio Perlasca
Posing as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary and saving 5,218 Jews from deportation to Nazi extermination camps.
- Monument to the European Resistance
Napoleon Bonaparte
- Villa Saporiti
Pope Innocent XI
A frugal, reform-minded pope who improved papal finances, opposed nepotism and supported efforts to free Hungary from Turkish domination.
- Basilica of San Fedele
Winston Churchill
Serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War and again from 1951 to 1955.
- Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni
- Villa Le Rose
- Villa Passalacqua
Alexander Troubetzkoy
- Villa Cagni Troubetzkoy
Angelo Maria Durini
An Italian cardinal and arts patron whose Lake Como villa hosted prominent intellectual and social gatherings.
- Villa del Balbiano
Ella Holbrook Walker
Living at Villa Serbelloni and donating it to the Rockefeller Foundation shortly before her death.
- Villa Serbelloni and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center
Francesco Melzi d'Eril
Italian politician and patriot who served as vice-president of the Napoleonic Italian Republic from 1802 to 1805 and supported Italian unification.
- Gardens of Villa Melzi
Geremia Lambertenghi
- Church of Saints Simon, Jude and Andrew in Lora
Giovanni Battista Sommariva
Italian politician, president of the Cisalpine Republic and patron of neoclassical art.
- Villa Carlotta
Giovanni Gavino Tolis
- Ponte Chiasso Road Customs House
Giuseppe Gronchi
Giuseppe Gronchi designed Como’s sculptural Campari Fountain, turning advertising into a piece of public art.
- Campari Fountain
Giuseppina Panzica
- Giuseppina Panzica’s Border Garden
- Ponte Chiasso Road Customs House
Konrad Adenauer
- Villa La Collina
Luigi Dottesio
- Luigi Dottesio Arrest Plaque
Luigi Guanella
Italian Catholic priest and founder of several religious communities
- Basilica of Sant'Abbondio
Maddalena Albrici
Maddalena Albrici is remembered as a fifteenth-century Augustinian religious leader whose remains are preserved in Como.
- Church of Saint Andrew the Apostle
Maria Gandola
Maria Gandola co-founded and shaped the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, helping family hospitality become part of fashionable Tremezzo’s identity.
- Grand Hotel Tremezzo
Paolo Boetti
- Ponte Chiasso Road Customs House
Paolo Carcano
Paolo Carcano helped turn Como’s workers’ silk school into a national state institution that would bear his name.
- Former Royal Silk School
Pier Amato Perretta
- Pier Amato Perretta Memorial Plaque
Princess Charlotte of Prussia
The eldest granddaughter of Queen Victoria and sister of Wilhelm II, she was Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen from 1914 to 1918.
- Villa Carlotta
Salvatore Corrias
- Former Bugone Finance Guard Barracks
- Fuattell Tree at Bugone
Tommaso Bianchi
Composing a poem for a posthumous tribute and publishing an early biography of Alessandro Volta in 1829.
- Basilica of San Fedele
Architecture
Antonio Sant'Elia
Bold architectural sketches and his influence on modern and Futurist architecture.
- Palazzo Terragni (Casa del Fascio)
Giuseppe Terragni
Giuseppe Terragni pioneered Italian Rationalism and designed major works of modern architecture in Como, including the Casa del Fascio.
- Casa Giuliani-Frigerio
- Casa Pedraglio
- Como Seaplane Hangar and Water Aerodrome
Adolfo Coppedè
Adolfo Coppedè left his mark on Como through Villa La Gaeta, created in collaboration with his brother Gino.
- Villa La Gaeta
Alberto Sartoris
Alberto Sartoris helped shape the Via Anzani Workers’ Housing and its wider urban plan in collaboration with Terragni.
- Via Anzani Workers’ Housing
Alfredo Campanini
- Villa Bernasconi
Attilio Terragni
An architect by training, Attilio Terragni collaborated with his brother Giuseppe in Como and later served as a senator for the Monarchist National Party.
- Ortelli Funerary Chapel
- Stecchini Funerary Chapel
- Terragni Family Home and Studio
Augusto Magnaghi
Collaborating on the competition-winning project for the Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers in Como.
- Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers
Carlo Cantaluppi
- Porticoed Reconstruction Block at Piazza Perretta
Carlo Ponci
- Como Seaplane Hangar and Water Aerodrome
Cesare Cattaneo
Cesare Cattaneo left an offbeat mark on Como through two striking Rationalist projects, including the Camerlata Fountain.
- Camerlata Fountain
- Casa Cattaneo in Cernobbio
- Former Giuseppe Garbagnati Nursery School
Cesare Paleni
- Church of Saints Simon, Jude and Andrew in Lora
Federico Frigerio
Federico Frigerio left his mark on Como by designing Villa Pirotta Bonacossa.
- Former Caffè Bottegone Façade
- Medallions of Como's Illustrious Citizens
- Villa Pirotta Bonacossa
Giacomo Tazzini
Giacomo Tazzini gave Villa Geno in Como its grand neoclassical form through a major nineteenth-century reconstruction.
- Villa Geno
Gianni Mantero
Engineer and architect who designed Como’s historic Mantero Silk Headquarters, the Mantero Family Aedicule, and the Canottieri Lario Clubhouse.
- Canottieri Lario Clubhouse
- Former Casa della Madre e del Bambino
- Historic Mantero Silk Headquarters
Gino Coppedè
Italian architect, sculptor and decorator who co-designed Villa La Gaeta in an eclectic blend of Gothic and Art Nouveau architecture.
- Villa La Gaeta
Giovanni Muzio
- Villa Pirotta Bonacossa
Giuseppe Casartelli
Designing the Grand Hotel Brunate, completed in 1893 and identified as his last work in the Art Nouveau style.
- Former Grand Hotel Brunate
Luigi Canonica
- Teatro Sociale
Luigi Origoni
Luigi Origoni left his mark on Como as a member of the design team behind the Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers.
- Former Giuseppe Garbagnati Nursery School
- Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers
Luigi Zuccoli
Luigi Zuccoli was an Italian painter whose scenes of domestic life found admirers abroad, while in Como his name is linked to the construction of Casa Giuliani-Frigerio.
- Casa Giuliani-Frigerio
Marcello Pozzi
- Casa Comanedi
Mario Terzaghi
Mario Terzaghi left a trace in Como by collaborating on the competition-winning project for the Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers.
- Former Headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers
Pietro Lingeri
Designing Casa Cattaneo-Alchieri and collaborating on the winning design for Como’s Fascist industrial-workers’ union building.
- Artists’ Houses on Isola Comacina
- Casa Cattaneo-Alchieri
- Former AMILA Motorboat Club
Visual art
Gianni Versace
Founder of the international luxury-fashion house Versace and one of the first designers to link fashion with the music world.
- Villa Fontanelle
Antonio Ambrogio Alciati
Italian painter who created decorative work for the interiors of Villa Pirotta Bonacossa in Como.
- Villa Pirotta Bonacossa
Antonio Ratti
Antonio Ratti transformed his passion for textiles into a collection and foundation that preserve Como’s creative silk heritage.
- Villa Sucota and the Antonio Ratti Foundation
Bertel Thorvaldsen
- Villa Mylius Vigoni
Francesco Hayez
- Villa Mylius Vigoni
Giovanni Bianchi
Founding a silk weaving and printing workshop in Como in 1866.
- Former Giovanni Bianchi Silk Workshop
Lodovico Pogliaghi
Italian painter, sculptor and decorator who contributed sculpture and the monumental entrance staircase to Villa Pirotta Bonacossa in Como.
- Villa Pirotta Bonacossa
Mario Radice
Mario Radice brought Italian abstract art into the streets of Como through the monumental Camerlata Fountain.
- Camerlata Fountain
Nino Lupica
- Cortesella Ceramic Memorial
Pompeo Marchesi
Pompeo Marchesi gave Como one of its neoclassical landmarks: the marble statue at the Monument to Alessandro Volta.
- Monument to Alessandro Volta
Riccardo Mantero
Riccardo Mantero founded the Mantero silk business and gave it a lasting home in Como.
- Historic Mantero Silk Headquarters
Salvatore Fiume
- Filanda Fiume
Literature
Cesare Lombroso
- Volta Mausoleum
Maya Angelou
Her seven autobiographies, especially I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and her work as a poet and civil rights activist.
- Villa Serbelloni and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center
Paolo Giovio
Paolo Giovio united the perspectives of a physician, historian, and biographer to record the people and events of his age.
- Giovio Museum
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A major English Romantic poet known for works such as "Ozymandias," "Ode to the West Wind," and "Prometheus Unbound," as well as his radical political and social views.
- Villa Pliniana
Pliny the Younger
His surviving letters, including official correspondence with Emperor Trajan, provide a valuable record of Roman public life and imperial government.
- Como Cathedral
- Roman Baths of Como
- Villa Pliniana
Stendhal
French writer best known for The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma, and for his acute analysis of character psychology.
- Gardens of Villa Melzi
- Villa Roccabruna and the Giuditta Pasta Estate
Ugo Foscolo
- Villa del Grumello
Alessandro Manzoni
- Villa Rachele
Antonio Fogazzaro
Italian novelist and proponent of Liberal Catholicism whose fiction explored conflicts between duty and passion, faith and reason.
- Villa Pliniana
Emilio De Marchi
- Villa Rachele
Giuseppe Parini
- Villa Sola Cabiati
Marie d'Agoult
- Palazzo Genazzini
Pencho Slaveykov
Bulgarian poet and participant in the Misal (“Thought”) literary circle.
- Bellavista Hotel and Pencho Slaveykov Memorial
Science
Alessandro Volta
Inventing the voltaic pile, an early electric battery that generated electricity chemically.
- Alessandro Volta High School and Science Museum
- Alessandro Volta’s Birthplace (Palazzo Volta)
- Bassone Oasis and Cascina Volta
Enrico Fermi
Italian-American physicist who created the first artificial nuclear reactor and won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Nobel Room at the Carducci Institute
- Villa Monastero
Guglielmo Marconi
Developing a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system and sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun.
- Nobel Room at the Carducci Institute
Max Planck
Originating quantum theory, introducing energy quanta and defining the Planck constant.
- Nobel Room at the Carducci Institute
Niels Bohr
Foundational contributions to atomic structure and quantum theory, including the Bohr model and the principle of complementarity.
- Nobel Room at the Carducci Institute
Carlo Amoretti
An Augustinian ecclesiastic, scholar, writer, scientist, and mineralogist who studied languages and ecclesiastical law.
- Marenghi Park and the Pertugio Spring
Giulio Cesare Gattoni
Establishing a physics cabinet in Gattoni Tower, conducting lightning-rod experiments with Alessandro Volta, and donating a scientific collection in Como.
- Alessandro Volta High School and Science Museum
- Former Jesuit College Site
- Gattoni Tower
Teresa Ciceri
- Volta's Library House in Camnago Superiore
Music
Franz Liszt
Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist known for his Romantic piano works, the symphonic poem and innovations in musical form and performance.
- Gardens of Villa Melzi
- Palazzo Genazzini
Giuditta Pasta
Italian opera singer and soprano who has been compared to the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas.
- Villa Roccabruna and the Giuditta Pasta Estate
Giuseppe Verdi
- Villa Margherita Ricordi
Vincenzo Bellini
A central figure of bel canto opera, Bellini was famed for long, graceful melodies and evocative musical settings.
- Villa Passalacqua
- Villa Salterio Erker
Amilcare Ponchielli
- Villa Margherita Ricordi
Gaetano Donizetti
- Villa Roccabruna and the Giuditta Pasta Estate
Giulio Ricordi
- Villa Margherita Ricordi
Film
Alfred Hitchcock
English filmmaker known as the “Master of Suspense” and for films including Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds.
- Villa d’Este
George Lucas
Creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, LucasArts and THX.
- Villa del Balbianello
Martin Campbell
Director of GoldenEye and Casino Royale, which used Villa del Balbianello and Villa La Gaeta near Como as filming locations.
- Villa del Balbianello
- Villa La Gaeta
Ridley Scott
English filmmaker known for Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and The Martian, and for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style.
- Villa del Balbiano
Steven Soderbergh
A pioneer of modern independent cinema known for bringing an arthouse approach to studio films, particularly crime stories, psychological dramas, and heist films.
- Villa Erba
Luchino Visconti
- Villa Erba
Mario Soldati
An Italian writer and film director who adapted novels for the screen and won the Strega Prize for Lettere da Capri.
- Villa Pliniana
Acting
Clark Gable
American actor known as the "King of Hollywood" and celebrated for leading roles in films including It Happened One Night and Gone with the Wind.
- Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni
George Clooney
American actor and filmmaker known for leading roles in television and film, as well as directing and producing.
- Villa Oleandra
Greta Garbo
A leading star of silent and early golden-era Hollywood, known for her subtle, understated portrayals of melancholic and tragic characters.
- Grand Hotel Tremezzo
Mary Pickford
A leading silent-film actress and producer known as the “Queen of the Movies,” she co-founded United Artists and gained complete creative control over her films.
- Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni
Uma Thurman
- Villa Sola Cabiati
Marie Taglioni
- Villa Maria Taglioni
Vanessa Redgrave
- Villa Sola Cabiati
Sport
Fabio Casartelli
Italian cyclist and Olympic gold medalist who died during the 1995 Tour de France.
- Como War Memorial
Gianluca Zambrotta
A versatile former footballer who began his career with Como and helped Italy win the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
- Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia
Giuseppe Sinigaglia
First Italian to win the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley (1914); died on the Isonzo front in 1916. Como’s stadium bears his name.
- Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia
- Canottieri Lario Clubhouse
Guido Monzino
Leading the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1973.
- Villa del Balbianello
Luigi Cevenini
Luigi Cevenini set an enduring Italian league record by scoring 37 goals for Inter Milan in the 1913–14 season.
- Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia
Follow the story on foot
These addresses are scattered across the city. Our routes and quests put them in an order that works.