ISOLA BELLA
Until the 17th century Isola Bella was nothing more than a half-deserted cliff. Vitaliano VI Borromeo transformed it to a place of delight, giving it «Italian style» gardens and a magnificent mansion [1670], terminated at a later date. The mansion and gardens [which can be visited] were supposed - with a typically baroque concept - to simulate a vessel on the lake.
After Palazzo Borromeo - where the works of art are preserved in their original environment - the visitor goes on to admire the baroque gardens. Here nature and human inventiveness combine to create a scenic complex culminating in the so-called «amphitheatre», an architectural and sculptural composition crowned by the unicorn, one of the Borromeo family's heraldic symbols.
ISOLA MADRE
Flaubert fell in love with Isola Madre, so purely «nature». It is one big botanical garden laid out on 5 terraces [which a
be visited by the public], with specimens of rare plants from all latitudes.
ISOLA DEI PESCATORI (FISHERMEN'S OR UPPER ISLAND) takes its name from its inhabitants' particular activity. The fascination of the island - apart from the panoramic splendour of the place - lies entirely in its archaic simplicity, in the rustic candour of the village with its graceful little houses and narrow, meandering streets.
