Lugano

Lugano is a city in southern Switzerland in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino bordering Italy. It has a population of 71,500, and an urban agglomeration over 145,000. The 9th largest Swiss city, it is the largest in Ticino and largest with an Italian speaking majority outside Italy.

The city lies on Lake Lugano, surrounded by the mountains of the Lugano Prealps. Its warm summers and reputation for attracting celebrities, entertainers, and successful athletes have earned it the nickname the "Monte Carlo of Switzerland".

Name and coat of arms

The toponym is first recorded in 804, in the form Luanasco, in 874 as Luano, and from 1189 as Lugano. German-language variants of the name (now no longer in use) were Lowens, Lauis, Lauwis. The etymology of the name is uncertain, suggestions include derivation from lucus "grove", from a vulgar Latin lakvannus "lake-dweller" and from the god Lugus.

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a cross throughout argent, between the upper case serif letters "L", "V", "G" and "A" (respectively in the I, II, III and IV quarters). The coat of arms dates from around 1200. The four letters on the coat of arms are an abbreviation of the name Lugano.

History

Pre-history

The shores of Lake Lugano have been inhabited since the Stone Age. Within the modern city limits (Breganzona, Castagnola, Davesco and Gandria) a number of ground stones or quern-stones have been found. In the area surrounding Lugano, items from the Copper Age and the Iron Age have been found. There are Etruscan monuments at Davesco-Soragno (5th to 2nd century BC), Pregassona (3rd to 2nd century BC), and Viganello (3rd to 2nd century BC). Graves with jewelry and household items have been found in Aldesago, Davesco, Pazzallo and Pregassona along with Celtic money in Viganello.

The region around Lake Lugano was settled by the Romans by the 1st century BC. There was an important Roman city north of Lugano at Bioggio. There are fewer traces of the Romans in Lugano, but several inscriptions, graves and coins indicate that some Romans lived in what would become Lugano.

Foundation of Lugano

The first written mention of a settlement at Lugano can be found in documents, which are of disputed authenticity, with which the Longobard king, Liutprand, ceded various assets located in Lugano to the Church of Saint Carpophorus in Como in 724. Other documents, dating from 804 and 844 refer to Lake Lugano as Laco Luanasco, and an act of 984 indicates Lugano as a market town.

During the fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines and the new disputes between Como and Milan, during the 14th and 15th centuries, Lugano was the scene of clashes between opposing forces. After a long rule by the Rusca family, Lugano was freed from the domination of Como, which had been taken over in 1335 by the Visconti. At the same time the link between town and the valley strengthened. By 1405–06 documents attest to a vallis comunitas Lugani et, which was a governing body that was independent of Como. The new community included the parishes of Lugano, Agno, Riva San Vitale and Capriasca. In 1416 the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti conquered the region of Lugano and the Rusca valley and made it a fief. A year later, Lugano's freedoms were first documented in a series of statutes modeled on those of Como. The town was able to secure complete independence.

Lugano during the Renaissance and Enlightenment

Between 1433 and 1438 the Duke of Milan, Aloisio Sanseverino sat as a feudal lord over Lugano. He compensated the Rusca family with the ownership of Locarno. Under the reign of his heirs in the following decades rebellions and riots broke out, which lasted until the French invasion of 1499.

It was the object of continuous disputes between the Dukes of Como and Milan until it became a Swiss dominion in 1513. Swiss control lasted until 1798 when Napoleon conquered the Old Swiss Confederation and created the Helvetic Republic.

In 1746, the Agnelli brothers opened the first printing press and bookshop in Lugano. They began publishing the newspaper Nuove di diverse corti e paesi in 1748 and changed its name to Gazzetta di Lugano in 1797. The newspaper was widely read in north and central Italy. It supported the cause of the later Jansenists against the Jesuits and was therefore banned in 1768 in the territory of the Papal States. It was open to the themes of enlightened reform and the American Revolutionary War. It was the first newspaper in the Italian language to publish an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence of 1776. After the death of Abbot Gian Battista Agnelli in 1788, who had been the editor for more than 40 years, Abbot Giuseppe Lodovico Maria Vanelli took over the paper. Under Abbot Vanelli, it supported the revolutionary ideas from France, which drew protests from the Austrian government in Lombardy. The publication of the magazine ceased abruptly after edition number 17 of 29 April 1799, following the anti-French riots in Lugano during which the Agnelli printing house was sacked and Abbot Vanelli was shot.

Under the Helvetic Republic, Lugano became the capital of the Canton of Lugano.

Canton of Lugano

The canton of Lugano unified the former Landvogteien of Lugano, Mendrisio, Locarno and Valmaggia. However, as with the other cantons of the Helvetic Republic, the autonomy of Lugano was very limited, the republic having been founded by Napoleon in order further to centralise power in Switzerland. The canton was led by a Directory of five members, who appointed a "national préfet".

The canton was deeply divided between "patriots", supporting the Cisalpine Republic, and traditionalist "aristocrats". By 1799 riots broke out in Lugano, and the second préfet, Francesco Capra, fled the city. Power passed to a provisional government sympathetic to the Habsburgs. However, French occupation was restored in 1800. Discontent continued and in early 1802 a revolt in Capriasca led to the autumn pronunciamento of Pian Povrò, which declared the independence of Lugano from the Helvetic client republic.

With the Act of Mediation, the following year, political agitation was finally quelled, as were the struggles between unionists and federalists. The canton of Lugano merged with Bellinzona creating the canton of Ticino, which endures to the present day.

19th century

After 1803, the political municipality of Lugano was created. One of the first tasks of the new city government was to determine the division of property and authority between the patriziato and the new political municipality. Two agreements between the two organizations, in 1804 and 1810, began this process. In the second half of the 19th century the political municipality received various properties and rights from the patriziato. Francesco Capra, the préfet during the Helvetic Republic, became the first mayor of Lugano from 1803 until 1813. The cantonal constitution of 1814, set Lugano, Bellinzona and Locarno as capitals of the Canton. They each served as the capital in a six-year rotation. Lugano was the capital in 1827–33, 1845–51 and 1863–69.

In the 19th century, the city government was dominated by the Liberal Party. In 1900, slightly more than half of the seats on the city council (at the time 50 total members, but 60 members since 2004) were held by Liberals. Most of the rest of the seats were held by either Conservatives or Socialists.

The city government initially had eleven members, but in 1908 their number was reduced to five and in 2004 increased to seven. Throughout most of the 20th century, the Liberals held the absolute majority here as well. The rest of the municipal executive posts were held by the Conservatives, the Socialists (1944–48, 1976–80 and since 2000) and the Ticino League (since 1992).

Around 1830 new civic and government buildings began to emerge in Lugano. The city also began to expand into the surrounding hills, along the Cassarate, and toward Molino Nuovo, Paradiso and Castagnola. In 1843–44 the city hall was built on the site of the Bishop's Palace (built in 1346). It housed the cantonal government in 1845–51 and again in 1863–69. Since 1890, it has housed the city government. The promenade was built in stages: first part was in the 1870s, a second in the first decade of the 20th century. In the first decades of the 19th century, the roads that connect Lugano with Bellinzona (1808–12), Ponte Tresa (1808–20) and Chiasso (1810–16) were built. In 1848 the first steamboat on Lake Lugano began to operate, with regular, scheduled service since 1856. The construction of the Melide causeway between Melide and Bissone in 1844–47 favored the development of the Chiasso-Bellinzona-Lugano-Gotthard line at the expense of the north-south route along Lake Maggiore. This tendency for development was strengthened further in 1882 with the completion of the Gotthard railway line. The railway station was built in 1874–77 in Lugano, and transformed it into one of the main links between northern Italy and central and northern Europe, which led to the development of tourism and in general helped the services sector.

Modern Lugano

From the mid-19th century to 1970 the city recorded constant population growth, especially between 1880 and 1910, when the population more than doubled. This increase was partly due to foreign nationals settling in Lugano (in 1870 18.7% of the population, 1910 43.6%) and people from other language areas of Switzerland (1870 1.4% of the population, 1910 6.9%). In the last three decades of the 20th century, the population fell slightly, despite the merger in 1972, of the municipalities of Castagnola and Brè-Aldesago. This reflected a trend to move away from the city to the suburban communities.

However, in 2004 the municipalities of Breganzona, Cureggia, Davesco-Soragno, Gandria, Pambio-Noranco, Pazzallo, Pregassona and Viganello were incorporated into the city. In 2008, they were followed by Barbengo, Carabbia and Villa Luganese. This, among other factors, resulted in a doubling of the population to 52,059 in 2006, of which over a third were foreigners. In 2013 the municipalities of Bogno, Cadro, Carona, Certara, Cimadera, Sonvico and Val Colla were incorporated into the city.

Following the Second World War, and particularly during the 1960s and 70s, thanks to an abundant flow of capital from nearby Italy, Lugano was the first host-city of the Eurovision Song Contest(1956). Lugano experienced a period of exponential growth in banking activities which led to it placing itself as the third financial centre of Switzerland, with over 100 banking institutions present in the city. Trade, tourism and finance are the mainstays of the local economy. In 2000, nine-tenths of the workers were employed in the services sector, of which three-quarters are commuters, including many cross-border commuters (13% of the working population).

In 1975, the Congress Center was built followed in 1978 by the new City Hospital. In 1963 the city acquired the land for the airfield Lugano-Agno, and the first scheduled flights was in 1980. At the beginning of the 21st century they began the Grande Lugano projects, including: the car tunnel Vedeggio-Cassarate, which started in 2005 and connects the A2 motorway with the neighborhood of Cornaredo, the creation of a new Kulturpol on the site of the former Grand Hôtel Palace and a convention and exhibition center in the area of Campo Marzio.

In June 2011, officials of the Israeli city of Yehud announced they would undertake a massive construction project to replicate Lugano's old square in the center of their city, to reinvigorate commerce and tourism. The replica will be replete with neoclassical columns and colonnades.

Geography

Lugano lies at the edge of Lake Lugano (Italian: Lago di Lugano or Ceresio), which is situated between the lakes Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como, south of the Alps. It lies at the heart of the Sottoceneri, that part of the canton of Ticino that lies south of the Monte Ceneri Pass.

The city centre is located on the lake shore just to the west of where the River Cassarate enters the lake. The city's waterfront forms a crescent around the bay between the Brè (925 m [3,035 ft]) and the San Salvatore (912 m [2,992 ft]) mountains.

Because of the historical development of the city, incorporating some relatively distant suburbs but leaving other, nearer, suburbs as independent municipalities, the borders of the city are disparate. A large and sparsely populated section of the city is on the east bank of Lake Lugano and separated from the city by that lake. Similarly, the inner-urban but independent municipality of Paradiso is a near-enclave, totally surrounded as it is by the city and the lake of Lugano.

Based on the 1997 land survey, as of 2013 Lugano has a total area of 32.09 square km. Of this area, 3.25 km2 (1.25 sq mi) or 10.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 6.73 km2 (2.60 sq mi) or 21.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 4.48 km2 (1.73 sq mi) or 14.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.04 km2 (9.9 acres) or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes and 0.12 km2 (30 acres) or 0.4% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 9.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.0%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 0.5% is used for growing crops and 9.4% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes.

Tourism

Lugano is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Switzerland. The city is home to a number of historic buildings and museums, whilst the surrounding area has many natural sights.

Both Lake Lugano and the surrounding mountains provide a wide variety of outdoor activities. The area surrounding Lugano is home to over 300 kilometres (190 mi) of mountain biking trails, the largest net of trails in Switzerland.

Heritage sites of national significance

There are 17 sites in Lugano that are part of the Swiss heritage site of national significance. The city of Lugano, the districts of Barbengo, Brè, Gandria and Biogno, and the sites of Cantine di Gandria and Castagnola are all part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

The heritage sites of national significance include two libraries, the Biblioteca Cantonale and the Biblioteca Salita dei Frati as well as the Swiss National Recording Archives (Fonoteca nazionale svizzera). There were three churches; Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli and the Church of San Rocco. There were three museums; the Museo cantonale d’arte, the Museo cantonale di storia naturale and the Villa Ciani complex with the Museo civico. The cemetery complex at via Trevano is also one of the sites, as is the Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (RTSI) Italian-language broadcast facility. The rest of the sites are notable houses throughout the city. They include; the Palazzo civico at piazza della Riforma, the Palazzo e cinema Corso at via Pioda, the Palazzo Riva at via Francesco Soave, the Palazzo Riva at via Massimiliano Magatti, the Palazzo Riva at via Pretorio 7 and Villa Favorita in Castagnola.

• Cathedral of San Lorenzo

• Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli

• Church of San Rocco

• Palazzo Civico or City Hall

• Sketch of Ecce Homo from MASI (Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana)

• Biblioteca Cantonale

Natural sights

A very popular destination in Lugano is Lake Lugano. The lake is 48.7 square kilometres (18.8 sq mi) in size, 63% of which is in Switzerland and 37% in Italy. It has an average width of roughly 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) and is nearly 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) at its widest. The maximum depth of the lake is 279 meters (915 ft). The water is generally warm with average water temperatures in the summer ranging from 19.5 °C (67.1 °F) to 24.0 °C (75.2 °F).

Several companies, including the Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano (SNL), provide tourist boat services on the lake. A popular excursion is by SNL boat to the picturesque lakeside village of Gandria. Additionally there are numerous shipyards, water taxis and boat rental sites along the lake, as well as hotels and restaurants that offer moorings. Bathing in the lake is allowed at any of the 50 or so bathing establishments located along the Swiss shores.

In addition to the lake, Lugano is surrounded by mountains, which provide a number of opportunities for sports or sightseeing. Two mountains, both providing excellent views over the city and lake, bracket each end of the city's waterfront. Monte Brè (933 metres (3,061 ft)), to the north, is reputedly Switzerland's sunniest spot and is also home to the old village of Brè. Monte San Salvatore (912 metres (2,992 ft)), to the south, has an old church and museum atop its summit. Both mountains are accessible by funicular railways, which are themselves easily accessible by frequent city bus or by car.

Slightly further afield is Monte Generoso (1,704 metres (5,591 ft)), with a view that encompasses the lakes of Lugano, Como and Maggiore, as well as the Alps from the Matterhorn to the Bernina Range, the Lombardy Plains, and, on a clear day, the city of Milan. The summit can be reached by taking either an SNL boat, or a railway train, to Capolago, and changing there onto a rack railway train of the Monte Generoso Railway.

Buildings

• St. Lawrence Cathedral (9th and 15th century)
• St. Mary of the Angels Church (16th century) with the fresco of the Christ's Passion from Bernardino Luini
• Parco civico – Villa Ciani
• Piazza della Riforma
• Villa Favorita
• San Rocco Church

Museums

• LAC (Lugano Art and Culture), the cultural centre dedicated to visual arts, music and performing arts
• Museo delle Culture (Museum of Cultures)
• MASI (Art Museum of Southern Switzerland)
• Foundation Aligi Sassu and Helenita Olivares
• Historical Museum
• Cantonal Museum on Natural History
• Swiss Customs Museum
• Municipal Art Museum
• Wilhelm Schmid Museum
• Hermann Hesse Museum
• Alprose Chocolate Museum (Chocoland)

Transport

Road

Lugano is located along the A2 motorway, a part of the European route E35 which over 1,600 km (990 mi) between Amsterdam and Rome.

The Trasporti Pubblici Luganesi (TPL) operate frequent inner city buses throughout Lugano and some of its closer neighbours. The Autolinee Regionali Luganesi (ARL) runs buses connecting Lugano with the districts of Davesco, Sonvico and the towns of Canobbio, Lamone and Tesserete, whilst the Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano runs buses to the district of Gandria and Campione d'Italia. TPL, ARL and SNL services operate from the Lugano Centro bus station.

Longer distance buses, as well as some local buses, are operated by PostBus Switzerland, known locally as the AutoPostale. Its Palm Express service connects Lugano to St. Moritz. AutoPostale buses operate from an underground bus station and ticket office, located at Via Balestra 4 in the centre of Lugano.

ASF Autolinee, an Italian bus company, operates an international bus route from Lugano to Menaggio, on the shores of Lake Como.

Air

Lugano is served by Lugano Airport, in the nearby municipality of Agno. Darwin Airline, Silver Air, Swiss Airlines operate to Lugano Airport. While there is limited service to Lugano's airport, Milan’s airports are around 60 to 90 minutes away and provide access to a greater number of worldwide locations.

Shipping

Boats of the Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano provide services on Lake Lugano. Whilst these are principally provided for tourist purposes, they also connect Lugano with other lake-side communities. Several of the landing points are within the sparsely populated section of the city that lies on the east side of lake, and have no road access.

Railways

Lugano's railway station is situated on the Gotthard Railway, which links northern Switzerland with Italy. Long distance trains of the Swiss Federal Railway (CFF), together with international trains of Trenitalia, connect Lugano with the cities of northern Switzerland and with Milan. From May until mid October, the tourist oriented Wilhelm Tell Express connects Lucerne with Lugano.

Lugano is also served by regular stopping trains of the Treni Regionali Ticino Lombardia (TILO), which operate every half-hour between Bellinzona and Chiasso, with some services extended to Milan. Additionally, the metre gauge (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in gauge) Lugano-Ponte Tresa Railway (FLP) connects Lugano with Ponte Tresa.

In the future, connections to Bellinzona will improve with the opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel and connections to cities in Northern Switzerland, such as Zürich, will improve with the Gotthard Base Tunnel.

Lugano is also served by three funicular railways. The Funicolare Lugano Città–Stazione , currently closed for refurbishment, is a short line connecting Lugano railway station to the city centre, whilst the Funicolare Monte Brè and the Funicolare Monte San Salvatore ascend nearby hills to vantage points.

Culture

The Palazzo dei Congressi is the performing arts center for Lugano. It is a main hall for the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.

The Lugano Festival runs during April and May, followed by the related "Progetto Martha Argerich" in June. Estival Jazz arrives in July. Between July and August there is the LongLake Festival, one of the greatest urban open air happenings in Switzerland. During one month, the LongLake offers over 300 events in downtown Lugano. The Blues-to-Bop Festival arrives in late August and early September turns the city into a hive of activity as thousands crowd the streets and piazzas for free open-air concerts.

In 1956, the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest.

The MASI (Museo d'Arte della Svizzera italiana) has two parallel objectives: the conservation and study of the Museum's permanent collection, which is above all made up of works belonging to the 19th and 20th centuries; and the planning and presentation of temporary exhibitions. It focuses on art of the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden (Grigioni in Italian) and present artists from the region on a regular basis.

The district of Brè-Aldesago offers its visitors charming corners created by its characteristic stone buildings. The cobble stone streets of the town offer art enthusiasts an artistic path that is very interesting both because of the presence of national and international "names" and the combination of art and the environment.