Discover Como – Museums: Art, Silk, Sailing.

Art, silk, and sailing have all a role in Como’s tradition. That is clear when strolling around the city’s beautiful streets and squares and in the villages by the lake, looking for lovely spots for a memorable picture. If we turn around, we can find splendid museums of ancient and modern art, history, silk, and boats. 

Museums in the city centre: Pinacoteca, Museo Giovio, and Museo Garibaldi
It is nice to think that all it takes is a stroll through the centre of Como to encounter art from various eras, from ancient to contemporary. If we move south, leaving via Vittorio Emanuele II with its elegant boutiques behind us, the splendid building housing the Museo Archeologico Paolo Giovio (Paolo Giovio Archaeological Museum) opens up before us. Here, amidst frescoes, statues, and stuccoes, we find evidence of ancient Como, from prehistoric to Roman times, and valuable finds from Greece and Egypt. These include even a mummy, which has aroused fear and curiosity among Como’s children for generations. 

Just pass the adjacent side of the square to enter the second museum in this quiet and fascinating corner of the city, the Museo Storico Giuseppe Garibaldi (Giuseppe Garibaldi Historical Museum). History buffs can find everything about the Italian Risorgimento and the wars of the 20th century here. In the building that houses the museum, Palazzo Olginati, the Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed in 1866. 

Walking down via Giovio, past the lovely cafés, we arrive with a surprise at an open space with a large 17th-century building housing the Pinacoteca Civica art gallery. For art lovers, the Pinacoteca offers citizens and tourists a prestigious and valuable heritage of works from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age, with futurist and abstractionist works. 

Museum: art, science, history
To visit in the walled city
Museo Archeologico Paolo Giovo, piazza Medaglie d’Oro 1
Museo Storico Giuseppe Garibaldi, piazza Medaglie d’Oro 1
Pinacoteca Civica, via Diaz 84
Porta di Como Romana, largo Gianfranco Miglio 1

To visit a bit outside the walled city
Mu.R.A.C Museo Rifugi Antiaerei, via Italia Libera 11
Museo delle Scienze Casartelli, via Cavallotti 7

Silk
Como is known worldwide for its natural beauty, villas, magnificent views of its lake, and silk, which experienced its golden age here between the 19th and 20th centuries. Just think that Como houses a high school called ‘Setificio’ that teaches young students textile art and fashion in the wake of the city’s silk tradition. Right next to the school, just outside the centre, we find the Museo della Seta (silk museum) that, through a 12-room itinerary, tells the story of the silk production process, from the silkworm to the made-up garment and fashion collections. 

As Como is the city of silk, for anyone visiting, a stop in the Como boutiques to buy scarves and fine clothes, which are the essence of the city’s elegance and tradition, is a must.

Leaving Como behind and continuing for about 6 kilometres to Cernobbio – a charming lakeside village that is home to the luxurious Villa d’Este hotel and the splendid Villa Erba congress and exhibition centre – with astonishment, we come across a magnificent example of Art Nouveau architecture, Villa Bernasconi. The villa – which is now an interesting multi-sensory and interactive museum that tells the stories of those who lived there – was home to Davide Bernasconi, a notable figure in the Como silk industry, founder of Tessiture Seriche Bernasconi, active until 1971. 

Museums: silk
To visit in Como
Museo della Seta, via Castelnuovo 9

To visit in Cernobbio
Villa Bernasconi, largo Campanini 2, Cernobbio

Sailing
If we continue northwards along the lake from Cernobbio, after about 40 kilometres, we reach Pianello del Lario, a pretty village on the shores of the lake. Here, in a splendid 19th-century spinning mill, we find a gem, the Museo Barca Lariana (Lake Como International Museum of Vintage Boats), which preserves hundreds of historical hulls that tell the story of Lake Como and Italian boating. In one of the museum’s rooms, we can admire the Venetian gondolas built on Lake Como, status symbols for the gentlemen who began to live in the luxurious lakeside villas from the 18th century onwards. 

Little further south from Pianello del Lario, on the other side of the lake, in splendid Bellagio, in an old tower house, the Museo degli Strumenti per la Navigazione (Museum of Navigation Instruments). The museum collects more than 200 objects and instruments for navigation at sea, from 18th-century Venetian telescopes, sundials, and compasses to a splendid brass planetarium and some 19th-century sea logbooks.

Museum: sailing
To visit
Museo Barca Lariana, via Regina 1268, Pianello del Lario
Museo degli Strumenti per la Navigazione, piazza Don Miotti, Bellagio