Como

Celtic peoples lived in the hills around Como from at least the Iron Age, and remains of their settlements survive on the wooded slopes south-west of the city. In the 1st century BC the area came under Rome, and Julius Caesar had the swamp at the tip of the lake drained and the town moved to the shore, laid out on a walled grid as Novum Comum. Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger were both born here, and in 2018 a hoard of several hundred late Roman gold coins was found under a former theatre.

After Rome, Goths, Byzantines, Lombards and Franks ruled in turn. A commune emerged by the 11th century, and Como grew rich on the road over the Alps and became Milan's last rival in Lombardy. The two fought the Ten Years' War from 1118, and in 1127 the Milanese destroyed its walls and houses. Frederick Barbarossa restored Como's freedom, rebuilt its walls and built the Baradello castle, and Como stayed loyal to the emperor while Milan was destroyed in 1162. The Rusca and Vitani families contended for power, and under Azzone Visconti Como passed for good into Milan's orbit, and after the short-lived Republic of Saint Abundius of 1447–1450 it passed for good to the Sforza.

Spanish, Austrian and French rule followed, until Garibaldi freed the city from the Austrians after the battle of San Fermo in May 1859. Silk made Como an industrial city: by the early 1970s its silk output surpassed that of China and Japan, and the population peaked at nearly 100,000. Como escaped bombing in the Second World War. Asian competition from the 1990s closed many silk firms, and since then tourism and services have taken their place.

Como's identity rests on its lake, its long rivalry with Milan and its independence, recalled in the white cross on red and the word LIBERTAS in the city's arms. The Palio del Baradello re-enacts Barbarossa's visit of 1159 each September, with the old wards competing in costume, and in June fireworks over the lake recall the medieval battles against Milan's ally on Isola Comacina. The patron saint, Abundius, is honoured on 31 August.

The city has an outsized place in science and architecture. Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electrical battery, was born here and is remembered by the Tempio Voltiano, the Faro Voltiano and Libeskind's Life Electric. In the 1930s Giuseppe Terragni made Como a capital of Italian rationalism with the Casa del Fascio and the war memorial, and the Sinigaglia stadium of 1927 was among the first rationalist buildings in Italy.

Music and sport fill the calendar: the Teatro Sociale has staged opera since the 19th century, the Lake Como Festival brings chamber music to villas around the lake, and the city hosts a Challenger tennis tournament. Como 1907 plays in Serie A, the women's basketball club Comense has twice been European champion, and the Aero Club Como is the oldest seaplane operation in the world.

About 83,700 people lived in Como in January 2023, some 14 per cent of them foreign residents, many from Asia, Eastern Europe and North Africa. The population peaked at nearly 100,000 in the 1970s, with silk at its height, and after falling has grown again, largely through immigration. The city is divided into nine districts, from the walled centre and the lakeside borghi to Camerlata, Albate and Monte Olimpino on the Swiss border.

Manufacturing no longer dominates. Como is increasingly part of the Milan metropolitan area, a large share of its workers are in services, and many cross the border daily to jobs in Lugano and Mendrisio, where wages are higher. Tourism has grown since the late 1990s, helped by films shot on the lake and celebrity residents, and about 400,000 overnight visitors came in 2023; bars, restaurants and hotels have multiplied in the centre.

The University of Insubria, a campus of the Politecnico di Milano, a music conservatory and a design school bring students. Daily life moves between the centre, the lakefront promenade and the hills, and traffic and winter air pollution are among the local complaints.

Como shares the butter-and-rice cooking of Lombardy, with the lake adding its own fish. Polenta, made from maize or buckwheat, was the traditional winter staple, served with meat, game, cheese or fish. Around the lake, restaurants serve polenta e misultin, polenta with shad dried in the lake tradition, and the classic local dish is risotto al pesce persico, risotto topped with fillets of perch from Lake Como, prepared with white wine, onion and butter.

Older customs survive in memory: until recently the feast of Sant'Antonio abate brought a small fair of sweets and chestnuts, including white chestnuts eaten with milk. The shad, known as missoltini, were traditionally dried in the sun, though they must now be dried in controlled ovens, and polenta remains the usual partner for fish, game and cheese alike.

The walled centre and its squares hold most restaurants and cafés, and the lakefront promenade is lined with ice-cream shops, the classic accompaniment to an evening walk towards Villa Olmo.