Nago-Torbole - History of Torbole and Nago

History of Torbole and Nago

Venetian domination (1440–1510) is evident in the old harbor: a typical toll house placed on a lake-front wharf. During Austrian domination (1810–1918), tourism grew during the Belle Époque. Goethe, who stopped here in September 1786, described Torbole with enchantment and wonder. Since then the town has been known everywhere as a beloved aim for artists and painters, who have left us a large iconography of the place. Although Torbole was on the frontier, it has always kept a certain Italian atmosphere with its colored houses, large roofs that sheltered the galleries and often a typical threshing-floor in front of the houses. Torbole is typically lacustrine and mediterranean, but along some higher streets the environment becomes more alpine.

The village clings to the calcareous rocks on the extreme north-west slope of Monte Baldo; it lies close to the mouth of the river Sarca and its houses are set as an anphitheatre around the small bay, in front of Monte Rocchetta and the Ledro Alps.

This area was populated in prehistoric times and colonized during the Imperial Roman times; it formed a community with Nago, castle residence of the Counts d'Arco. In 1439 Torbole witnessed an extraordinary event during the Third Lombard War (1438), between Milan and Venice. Venice dominated the eastern side of the lake (the Riviera). In order to gain supremacy on Lake Garda and help the Venetian mercenary Erasmo da Narni, called Gattamelata, in freeing Brescia from the Milanese siege. The Venetians transported twenty-five boats and six galleys from the Adriatic Sea up the River Adige until the fluvial harbour of Mori. Here the boats were hauled on carts by strength of arm and with oxen, launched then into Lake Loppio and finally lowered from the slopes of Monte Baldo into Lake Garda at Torbole. This exploit cost 240 oxen and 15,000 ducats. In April 1440 the small Venetian fleet destroyed Visconti's fleet and conquered Riva del Garda.

Torbole, even in the 15th century, was a stop for European travelers passing through on the Atesina road from Germany to Italy. Montaigne visited Torbole in 1580. Goethe arrived here from Rovereto in the afternoon of 12 September 1786, four days after having crossed Brenner Pass. Goethe was 37 years old and getting in touch with the blue expanse of Lake Garda and the silver olive-groves, he experienced for the first time the mild climate of the places extolled by the Classics, and he believed to have achieved happiness. Even the Brescian Cesare Arici, idyllic rural poet, exalted the "fishy Torbole". The extraordinary picturesque look of the village enticed several painters from the German romantic and late romantic world. The painter Hans Lietzmann, for example, bought a large olive grove on the lake's shore (behind the Hotel Paradiso) and opened a school of nude art; many talented painters were trained at this school. The actual tourist center evolved in the second half of the last century from an old village of fishermen, farmers and mountaineers, into a seasonal health-resort for European travellers, like the neighbouring Riva and Arco.

This resort is the capital of the Nago–Torbole district and appears on a bay, on the lake eastern shore. People coming from Nago, along the road descending to the lake by steep hairpin bends, can admire an incredibly fine sight. The house's roofs, gathered near to the shore, stand out from the green of the fields and create a chromatic contrast with lake Garda's water which reflects the deep blue sky tonalities.