Lurago d'Erba

If you’re looking for a village that's immersed in the lush vegetation of the Alta Brianza, look no further than Lurago d’Erba, an ancient farming community and now a municipality with barely 5400 inhabitants.

Spread over five hills, it encompasses the hamlets of Calpuno, Colciago, Careggia, Careggiola and Lurago. All five have similar origins, each one springing up around an old farmhouse to gradually develop into a small village.So, an isolated place, cut off from the world? Not at all.

Archaeological finds show the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. Afterwards came Bronze and Iron Age settlements, then occupation by the Gauls and, later still, colonisation by the Romans. The latter gave the village, in Latin Lauriacum, and the Via Valassina, the road connecting Milan to Bellagio, their names.

Further evidence of Roman times has been found in the form of tombs, building materials and coins. The municipality of Lurago is also referenced in several medieval documents, the oldest of which dates to 879. Then, feudal lords ruled this land, once part of the parish of Incino. First came the Visconti.

Then, in 1383, the land passed to the Dal Verme family (with Count Giussani stepping in between 1656 and 1682). Today, the Lurago countryside is still dotted with historic villas and several still-inhabited farmsteads.

Then there is the ancient parish church of San Giovanni Evangelista (John the Apostle), fully rebuilt in the early 1900s on the same hilltop from which it had dominated the surrounding landscape since the late eighteenth century.