Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore | |
---|---|
Primary outflows | Ticino |
Catchment area | 6,599 km2 (2,548 sq mi) |
Basin countries | Italy, Switzerland |
Max. length | 64.37 km (40.00 mi) |
Max. width | 10 km (6.2 mi) |
Surface area | 212.5 km2 (82.0 sq mi) |
Average depth | 177.4 m (582 ft) |
Max. depth | 372 m (1,220 ft) |
Water volume | 37.7 km3 (9.0 cu mi) |
Residence time | 4 years |
Surface elevation | 193 m (633 ft) |
Islands | Brissago Islands, Borromean Islands |
Settlements | Arona, Locarno, Luino, Stresa, Verbania (see list) |
Lake Maggiore (
The climate is mild in both summer and winter, producing
Lake Maggiore is drained by the river Ticino, a main tributary of the Po. Its basin also collects the waters of several large lakes, notably Lake Lugano (through the Tresa), Lake Orta (through the Toce) and Lake Varese (through the Bardello).[4]
Geography
Lake Maggiore is 64.37 km (40 mi) long, and 3 to 5 km (2 to 3 mi) wide, except at the bay opening westward between
The lake basin has tectonic-glacial origins and its volume is 37 cubic kilometres (9 cu mi).[.
The lake's jagged banks are surrounded by the
Climate
Lake Maggiore weather is
Flora and fauna
The flora is strongly influenced by the lake basin, which has allowed the proliferation of typically Mediterranean plants, and also of plants native to the Atlantic areas favoured by the composition of the soil and the abundance of siliceous rocks.
The lake is a habitat to two species of whitefish,
A number of exotic species have established themselves in the lake, including
Towns and villages on the lake
Switzerland, Canton of Ticino |
Italy, Piedmont Region Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Province of Novara |
Italy, Lombardy Region Province of Varese |
---|---|---|
Islands
- Borromean Islands (three islands and two islets located between Verbania to the north and Stresa to the south)
- Isola Bella
- Isola Madre
- Isola dei Pescatori (or Isola Superiore)
- Isolino di San Giovanni (in front of Verbania)
- Scoglio della Malghera (between Isola Bella and Isola Pescatori)
- Brissago Islands (close to Brissago)
- San Pancrazio (or Grande Isola)
- Isolino (or Isola Piccola or Isola di Sant’Apollinare)
- Castelli di Cannero (three small islands just off the shore from Cannero Riviera)
- Isolino Partegora (in the gulf of Angera)
Sacro Monte di Ghiffa
The
Events
The Spirit of Woodstock Festival is an annual open air festival at the end of July/beginning of August. It is organized in Armeno by the Mirapuri community.
History
The first archaeological findings around the lake belong to nomadic people living in the area in prehistoric types. The first settlements discovered date from the
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the lake was under different domains. Most of the current settlements originated in the Middle Ages when the lake was under the Della Torre, Visconti, the Borromeo and Habsburg families.
Clashes also took place on the waters of the lake between military fleets, such as in 1263, when the Della Torre ships fought against those of the Visconti near Arona or, between 1523 and 1524, when the Borromeo clashed against Francesco II Sforza and in 1636 between French and Spanish always in the waters between Arona and Angera.[13]
From the fourteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, navigation on the lake and on the Ticino was also used to transport the heavy blocks of marble obtained from the quarries located around the lake towards the main Lombard construction sites: the cathedral of Milan and the Certosa di Pavia.[14]
Methane was first discovered and isolated by Alessandro Volta as he analysed marsh gas from Lake Maggiore, between 1776 and 1778.[15]
From the middle of the 19th century, the lake began to experience strong tourist development, particularly after Queen Victoria's stay in Baveno in 1879.[16]
In 1936, a
In May 2021,
In May 2023 a boat capsized in a storm while travelling between Arona and Sesto Calende, killing 4 people. Among the dead were 2 Italian intelligence agents as well as a former agent of Mossad. [19][20]
The Hotel Meina incident at Lake Maggiore
This incident is part of the Lake Maggiore massacres during WWII.
Meina is a municipality located 77 kilometres (48 miles) northwest of Milan, on the southern shores of Lake Maggiore. The Hotel Meina was located north of the town of Meina and was owned by Alberto and Eugenia Behar, Sephardic Jews who had moved to Italy from Constantinople. In September 1943, an armistice was declared between Italy and the Allies. At that time, the Hotel Meina housed a number of Jewish guests, most of them escapees of the Nazi occupation of Greece.[21] The area around Lake Maggiore was not under Allied control but was occupied by the German Waffen-SS, specifically the infamous Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Captain Hans Krüger, who directed operations in Meina and the surrounding villages, was in charge of locating the Jews in that area and was responsible for the Lake Maggiore massacres in which approximately 54 Jews were murdered.
On the night of 22 September 1943, most of the Jewish residents of the Hotel Meina were executed and their bodies were thrown into Lake Maggiore. The Fernandez-Diaz family, a family of Greek Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki, barricaded themselves in one of the fourth-floor hotel rooms. It took an extra day for the Germans to reach and execute them. The family included three young children whose lives were not spared despite pleas from older family members. Among those killed were Dino Fernandez-Diaz (76 years old), Pierre Fernandez-Diaz (46), Liliane (Scialom) Fernandez-Diaz (36), Jean Fernandez-Diaz (17), Robert Fernandez-Diaz (13), Blanchette Fernandez-Diaz (12), Marco Mosseri (55), Ester Botton (52), Giacomo Renato Mosseri (22), Odette Uziel (19), Raoul Torres (48), Valerie Nahoum Torres (49), and Daniele Modiano (51). In total, sixteen Jewish residents of the hotel were executed. Its owners, the Behar family, survived due to the efforts of the Turkish consulate.
The Italian police report on the Meina massacre was lost but resurfaced in 1994, along with hundreds of other files of war crimes committed post-armistice by Germans who still occupied or were retreating from Italian soil. These files had been hidden in a wooden cabinet, the so-called "
Germany does not extradite its citizens convicted of war crimes in other countries. Those responsible for the Meina massacre were tried at home in Germany in 1968, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.[22] However, in 1970, the German Supreme Court declared the statute of limitations for those particular war crimes to have expired, and the prisoners were released.
References in literature and popular culture
Lake Maggiore is featured in American writer Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms. The protagonist (Frederic Henry) and his lover (Catherine Barkley) are forced to cross the transnational border within the lake in a row boat to escape Italian carabinieri.
It also appeared as the location of a fictional racetrack in the racing game Gran Turismo Sport and Gran Turismo 7.
See also
Sources
- ^ "Maggiore". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
- ^ "Maggiore, Lake" (US) and "Maggiore, Lake". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2021-04-16.
- ^ "Maggiore, Lake". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
- ^ Swisstopo topographic maps.
- ^ this paragraph is taken largely verbatim from John Ball, The Alpine Guide, Central Alps, 1856, p. 306
- ^ 1:25,000 topographic map (Map). Swisstopo. Retrieved 2014-07-28.
- ^ The history of Lake Maggiore lagomaggioreonline.it. Retrieved 2010-03-12
- ^ Lake Maggiore myswitzerland.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12
- ^ Lago maggiore - a popular holiday destination in Switzerland as well travel-swiss.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-03-12
- ^ "NUMEROSI UCCELLI ACQUATICI SUL LAGO MAGGIORE". Archived from the original on 2013-07-29.
- S2CID 254544327. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
- ISBN 9788864780719.
- ISBN 978-88-31365-53-6. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ icvbc.cnr.it. "LE PIETRE IMPIEGATE NELL'ARCHITETTURA MILANESE E LOMBARDA". icvbc.cnr.it. National Research Council (Italy). Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ alessandrovolta.it. "Il Metano". alessandrovolta.it. Fondazione Alessandro Volta. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ISBN 9788864780719.
- ^ "RFI - 260,500 euros for rusty old car found at bottom of lake". Rfi.fr. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
- ^ "Thirteen dead after cable car falls in Italy". BBC News. 23 May 2021. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
- ^ "Israel Confirms Former Mossad Agent Killed After Boat Capsizes in Italy". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
- ^ "Italy: Agents die when boat capsizes on Lake Maggiore". BBC News. 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
- ^ Ventura, Andrea; Franzinelli, Mimmo (2013-01-27). "The Hôtel Meina". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
- ^ "Three former Hitler bodyguards sentenced to life for killing Jews in northern Italy" (PDF). Vol. 35, no. 129. Bonn: Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1968-07-08. p. 4. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
External links
- Coolidge, William Augustus Brevoort (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). p. 304.
- CIPAIS Commissione Internazionale per la Protezione delle Acque Italo-Svizzere (in Italian) limnologic reports on the Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano
- Official website of Ascona-Locarno Tourism
- Cannobio/Lake Maggiore Information and History