Lake Maggiore is drained by the riverTicino, a main tributary of thePo. Its basin also collects the waters of several large lakes, notably Lake Lugano (through theTresa), Lake Orta (through theToce) andLake Varese (through the Bardello).[4]
Lake Maggiore is 64.37 km (40 mi) long, and 3 to 5 km (2 to 3 mi) wide, except at the bay opening westward betweenPallanza andStresa, where it is 10 km (6 mi) wide. It is the longest Italian lake, and second toLake Garda in area. Its mean height above the sea level is 193 m (633 ft) ; a deep lake, its bottom is almost everywhere below sea-level: at its deepest, 179 m (587 ft) below. Its form is very sinuous so that there are few points from which any considerable part of its surface can be seen at a single glance. If this lessens the effect of the apparent size, it increases the variety of its scenery. While the upper end is completelyalpine in character, the middle region lies between hills of gentler form, and the lower end advances to the verge of the plain ofLombardy.[5] Lake Maggiore is the most westerly of the three great southernprealpine lakes, the others beingLake Como and Lake Garda.
The lake basin has tectonic-glacial origins and its volume is 37 cubic kilometres (9 cu mi).[citation needed] The lake has a surface area of about 213 square kilometres (82 sq mi), a maximum length of 54 km (34 mi) (on a straight line) and, at its widest, is 12 km (7 mi).[citation needed] Its main tributaries are theTicino, theMaggia (forming a very large delta), theToce (by which it receives the outflow ofLake Orta) and theTresa (which is the sole emissary ofLake Lugano). The riversVerzasca,Giona, andCannobino also flow into the lake. Its outlet is the Ticino which, in turn, joins the riverPo just south-east ofPavia.
Lake Maggiore weather ishumid subtropical (Cfa in theKöppen climate classification). During winter, the lake helps to maintain a higher temperature in the surrounding region (since water releases heat energy more slowly than air). The temperatures are cooled down in summer by the breezes that blow on the water's surface, changing its colour. The area enjoys nearly 2300 hours of sunshine a year and an average annual temperature of 15.5 °C (60 °F). The water of the lake has a comfortable temperature of 20 to 22 °C (68 to 72 °F) in July and August. In winter snowfall is erratic and primarily affects the higher elevations. Rainfall is heaviest in May and lowest during the winter months.[7][8][9]
The flora is strongly influenced by the lake basin, which has allowed the proliferation of typically Mediterranean plants, and also of plants native to the Atlantic areas favoured by the composition of the soil and the abundance of siliceous rocks.Lemons,olive trees and bay olive trees grow there.[citation needed] The spontaneous vegetation is composed ofyew, holly and chestnut trees on the surrounding hills.
A number of exotic species have established themselves in the lake, includingpikeperch, which has been recorded since 1977;wels catfish, which was first noticed in the early 1990s; andruffe, introduced in the mid-1990s. Wels catfish in excess of 50 kg in weight have been fished from the lake.[11]
The Spirit of Woodstock Festival is an annualopen air festival at the end of July/beginning of August. It is organized inArmeno by theMirapuri community.
The first archaeological findings around the lake belong to nomadic people living in the area in prehistoric types. The first settlements discovered date from theCopper Age. Along the shores of the lake, between the 9th and 4th centuries BC. J.-C., theGolasecca culture, aCeltic civilization of theIron Age developed. The latter was in turn conquered by theRomans, who called the lakeVerbanus Lacus orLacus Maximus. In Roman times a maritime line was created that linked the lake, thanks toTicino, toPavia, from where the ships would then continue along thePo to theAdriatic Sea.[12]
After the fall of theWestern Roman Empire, the lake was under different domains. Most of the current settlements originated in the Middle Ages when the lake was under theDella Torre,Visconti, theBorromeo andHabsburg families.
Clashes also took place on the waters of the lake between military fleets, such as in 1263, when the Della Torre ships fought against those of the Visconti near Arona or, between 1523 and 1524, when the Borromeo clashed againstFrancesco II Sforza and in 1636 between French and Spanish always in the waters between Arona and Angera.[13]
From the fourteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, navigation on the lake and on theTicino was also used to transport the heavy blocks of marble obtained from the quarries around the lake towards the main Lombard construction sites: thecathedral of Milan and theCertosa di Pavia.[14]
From the middle of the 19th century, the lake began to experience strong tourist development, particularly afterQueen Victoria's stay inBaveno in 1879.[16]
In 1936, aBugatti Type 22 Brescia Roadster, built in 1925, was sunk in the lake by employees ofZürich architect Marco Schmucklerski, whenSwiss customs officials investigated whether he had paid taxes on the car. The Bugatti was attached to an iron chain making it possible to recover it once the investigation was over, yet that never happened. When the chain corroded, the car sunk to the lake bed, where it was rediscovered on 18 August 1967 by local diver Ugo Pillon and became a favourite target for divers thereafter. When one of the divers, Damiano Tamagni, was killed in a hold-up on 1 February 2008, his friends from theAscona divers' club decided to lift and sell the car wreck to raise funds for a yet-to-be-created foundation named after the victim. The remains of the Bugatti were recovered on 12 July 2009. The sale took place at the Retro Mobile classic car exhibition in Paris on 23 January 2010. It was sold for €260,500.[17]
In May 2023 a boat capsized in a storm while travelling betweenArona andSesto Calende, killing 4 people. Among the dead were 2 Italian intelligence agents as well as a former agent ofMossad.[19][20]
Meina is a municipality 77 kilometres (48 miles) northwest of Milan, on the southern shores of Lake Maggiore. The Hotel Meina was north of the town of Meina and was owned by Alberto and Eugenia Behar, Sephardic Jews who had moved to Italy from Constantinople. In September 1943, an armistice was declared between Italy and the Allies. At that time, the Hotel Meina housed a number of Jewish guests, most of them escapees of theNazi occupation of Greece.[21] The area around Lake Maggiore was not under Allied control but was occupied by the German Waffen-SS, specifically the infamousLeibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Captain Hans Krüger, who directed operations in Meina and the surrounding villages, was in charge of locating the Jews in that area and was responsible for theLake Maggiore massacres in which about 54 Jews were murdered.
On the night of 22 September 1943, most of the Jewish residents of the Hotel Meina were executed and their bodies were thrown into Lake Maggiore. The Fernandez-Diaz family, a family of Greek Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki, barricaded themselves in one of the fourth-floor hotel rooms. It took an extra day for the Germans to reach and execute them. The family included three young children whose lives were not spared despite pleas from older family members. Among those killed were Dino Fernandez-Diaz (76 years old), Pierre Fernandez-Diaz (46), Liliane (Scialom) Fernandez-Diaz (36), Jean Fernandez-Diaz (17), Robert Fernandez-Diaz (13), Blanchette Fernandez-Diaz (12), Marco Mosseri (55), Ester Botton (52), Giacomo Renato Mosseri (22), Odette Uziel (19), Raoul Torres (48), Valerie Nahoum Torres (49), and Daniele Modiano (51). In total, sixteen Jewish residents of the hotel were executed. Its owners, the Behar family, survived due to the efforts of the Turkish consulate.
The Italian police report on the Meina massacre was lost but resurfaced in 1994, along with hundreds of other files of war crimes committed post-armistice by Germans who still occupied or were retreating from Italian soil. These files had been hidden in a wooden cabinet, the so-called "cabinet of shame", discovered in a storeroom of the military prosecutor's headquarters.
Germany does not extradite its citizens convicted of war crimes in other countries. Those responsible for the Meina massacre were tried at home in Germany in 1968, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.[22] However, in 1970, theGerman Supreme Court declared the statute of limitations for those particular war crimes to have expired, and the prisoners were released.
Lake Maggiore is featured in American writerErnest Hemingway's novelA Farewell to Arms. The protagonist (Frederic Henry) and his lover (Catherine Barkley) are forced to cross the transnational border within the lake in a row boat to escape Italiancarabinieri.
