A corner of paradise, routes between art and history, tradition and nature, and good food.

At Isola Maggiore, the unspoilt splendour of the landscape is inextricably intertwined with the history of the fishing community that inhabits it: starting from Etruscan/Roman times, passing through a Middle Ages rich in light and shade, and ending with the present day.

The fishing village and monuments scattered throughout the area transport the visitor to an ancient world, where the hard work of fishermen was repaid by the generosity of the lake and the proceeds were invested in the care of people and souls. Churches, oratories and hospitals created the fabric of society around which the population, through religious brotherhoods, worked for their greater well-being. The parish church of San Michele Arcangelo and its frescoes, the church of San Salvatore, the church of the Buon Gesù, the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo (house of the Captain of the people) and the ancient hospital bear witness to this material and spiritual wealth

The latter was also helped by the construction of the convent of the Fransciscan Friars Minor, in memory of St Francis’ stay on Isola Maggiore during Lent in 1211.

This dependence on fishing has always affected the islanders, so that when the lake suddenly rose in the 16th century, making the type of fishing done on the island – Pesca dei Tori – unprofitable, the community experienced a drastic drop in the standard of living until the last decades of the 19th century, when Marquis GIACINTO Guglielmi bought the former Franciscan convent and turned it into a villa/castle, bringing prosperity back to the inhabitants, also thanks to the introduction of work in Irish lace to the women of the village, as evidenced by the works in the local Museo del Merletto (Lace Museum)

After World War II, Isola Maggiore was consecrated as a tourist destination, thanks to the creation of a modern navigation system on the lake, as well as for all the magnificent sites and spectacular nature.

History of Isola Maggiore

Historical information is sporadic until the late Middle Ages, but from here we know that the island community experienced periods of development and economic – demographic crises, caused, mainly, by the ever-changing level of the lake and the economic prominence of the islanders’ main livelihood: fishing.

During the 12th century, Isola Maggiore submitted to the Commune of Perugia, which became the possessor of the lake, its islands and the entire surrounding territory (it is no coincidence that Trasimeno in this period assumed the name Lago di Perugia – the Lake of Perugia). In the 1282 census, the island community was found to consist of 70 families for a total of 300 people, many of whom were dedicated to an already well-equipped fishing activity. And it is precisely Isola Maggiore, together with the fishing community on Isola Polvese, that in the second half of the 13th century dominated fishing on the Trasimeno.

In 1211, Isola Maggiore was also a place of prayer and residence (and popular tradition) for the Poor Friar of Assisi, Saint Francis, who spent an entire Lent here, eating only half a loaf of bread.

Between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age, Isola Maggiore became the most important fishing centre on the lake; testimony to this are the many works of art conserved in the numerous churches on the island. The settlement reached its maximum development in the 16th century with a population estimated at between 500 and 600 inhabitants, and was laid out on two parallel roads. In this period, Isola was also the birthplace of prominent figures, including Matteo dall’Isola, a man of letters and humanist, author of the Latin work Trasimenide. Thanks to Matteo, we have a whole series of information on the history and economy of the lake and other historical centres, as well as hints on hunting and fishing. He also introduces us to renowned countrymen such as Antonio Spennato, a philosopher and physician, Guidone Vannucci, a grammarian, and Marco Serperella, another distinguished man of letters, called in 1502 to hold the post of Preceptor of Fine Arts at the Perugia Studium.

Isola Maggiore in the 1500s was in lively ferment: there were no less than eight places of worship, the Casa del Capitano del Popolo or the ancient clock, the Casa delle Opere Pie and the Ospedale dei Disciplinati, two windmills and all the places connected to the passage of St. Francis. Added to this is the presence on the island of no less than five confraternities, whose work was all geared towards the weaker strata of society, from the prospect of a dignified funeral and prayers for suffrage to the commitment of all kinds of charitable work. The oldest is the confraternity of Santa Maria dei Disciplinati (in existence since at least 1341 and suppressed, after various vicissitudes, only in 1983), which dealt with the distribution of foodstuffs to the poor and ran a small hospital, located at the Church of S. Salvatore.

Towards the end of the 16th century, the longest and most tormented period of flooding of the lake in local history began. Water stagnated for years in the lower floors of the houses of Isola Maggiore, Passignano and San Feliciano (the castle of Borghetto was completely flooded). Because of this unexpected and unmanageable situation, the fishermen of Lake Trasimeno were forced to abandon their Tori fishing technique and it was thus that Isola Maggiore lost its supremacy to the benefit of San Feliciano, where a technique of catching valuable fish was practised with the so-called arelle inside Valle, a wind-protected inlet in the south-east of the lake.

This economic collapse was echoed by a demographic collapse. In 1630 the population was reduced to 355; in the second half of the century it halved. Between the 18th and early 19th century, the population fluctuated between 100 and 150. In the following decades, however, the population began to grow again. Marquis Giacinto Guglielmi of Civitavecchia had arrived in Isola Maggiore. He had originally purchased the Franciscan friars’ convent, which was abandoned at the time, and then, with extensive building and renovation work, erected a castle-like residential complex, known as Castello Guglielmi or Villa Isabella, named after the marquis’ wife. With the construction of the villa (including the park and garden), the Guglielmi family provided employment for various workers for several years, offering the island’s poor families at least adequate decorum. In 1904, on the initiative of Giacinto and Isabella’s daughter, Elena, an embroidery school was opened for the fishermen’s young daughters. A teacher from Turin was called in who was an expert in ‘lace or Irish stitch’, a delicate lace worked with a very fine crochet hook. Magnificent evidence of the embroidery skills of the women who inhabited Isola Maggiore are the works of art that can be admired at the Lace Museum, located along Corso Guglielmi.

Around the middle of the last century, with the decline of the Guglielmi family, fishing activity and the vertiginous drop in the lake level, this brief phase of rebirth for Isola Maggiore and its islanders came to an end.

The swamping that gripped the lake in the aftermath of the Second World War made the best fishing grounds impassable, thus marking the start of a new and slow emigration towards the city and towards more secure work. In the early 1970s, fishing once again gave new guarantees and hopes. Isola Maggiore timidly began to experience the phenomenon of mass tourism, stimulated by the establishment of a public navigation service by the Province of Perugia in 1962. Without denying its fishing soul and roots, this community began to build a new identity within itself, and within a very short time Isola Maggiore became the destination of an impressive flow of tourists. As soon as you step out onto the jetty at Isola Maggiore and walk the few steps leading into the town, you immediately feel that you are in an enchanted place of tradition and culture. To have any knowledge of the history of Isola Maggiore is to understand, first of all, how fishing has been a lively engine for the life of this community.

Tori: the fishing technique in Isola Maggiore

The fishing technique known as Pesca dei Tori (from the Latin word torus in the sense of ‘swelling’) has not been used for four centuries now, but ample documented evidence remains that reveals not only the lake’s great fishiness in past centuries, but also the desire to exploit and, at the same time, protect a valuable asset. Optimising forces and having satisfactory results meant, for the fishermen, having the possibility of using permanent fishing facilities.

Around the middle of the 15th century, this technique counted as many as 2000 fixed catching installations at Lake Trasimeno. But the work to build them was by no means simple and involved a large part of the lake community (woodcutters, farmers, boat builders, weavers and so on) for several months of the year.

In winter, trunks and poles of chestnut or turkey oak were cut; in late spring, huge quantities of oak branches had to be obtained to make the bundles, which, during the summer, when the lake was calm, were transported on boats to the chosen places, where there were the piles used the previous year. In this way, the fishermen formed hundreds of pyramid-shaped piles (the tori) where the fish could find asylum at the beginning of the winter season. With hemp, cultivated along the lakeshore, nets were made.

The fishermen were organised in Companies of nine men with a boatmaster (called navarca) and eight men of labour and made use of a large cargo boat (nave) and a smaller support boat (navigliuolo).

Matteo dall’Isola himself describes the exploits of the fishermen in epic tones. Once they arrived at the fishing spot, the hardworking men began to build two circular structures around tori with poles stuck into the muddy bottom. Tightly woven nets were hung from the poles out of the water in the outer circle and then lowered to the bottom, creating a large chamber with all the fish trapped in it. The men then, with hooked poles and long curved rakes, would pull all the bundles out of the bottom and throw them over the fence. At this point all that remained was to collect the fish left wandering inside the tori. The ship was brought in at the centre and the net with all the trapped fish was retrieved. Then all the stakes and poles were removed and only the bunch of bundles remained in place to form the base of the tori for the following year.

In addition to the tori fishing activity, there was also gorro fishing, a 120-metres long net to the ends of which were tied two very long ropes for hauling it to shore. It was stretched out in the water in a semicircle and retrieved from the stretches of coastline free of reeds and submerged marsh plants, usually opposite the mouths of torrents.

The historical and artistical landscape

We have already mentioned the presence on the island of a large number of religious buildings: Chiesa del Buon Gesù (Church of the Good Jesus), originally an oratory and the seat of the confraternity of Santa Maria dedicated to assisting the needy, inside which one can see a late Baroque altar and two canvases, one by the local painter Anton Maria Garbi – Presentation of Jesus at the temple– and the other by the Assisian painter Giacomo Giorgetti – Assumption of the Virgin and Saints.

The next stop is the Romanesque church of San Salvatore with a single nave with transept and semicircular apse. The pictorial decoration of the walls is almost completely lost. On the left side of the church, in a chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, there are objects and works of art such as a Baroque-style tabernacle and two 16th-century wooden statues depicting St. Francis and a Risen Christ.

Pieve di San Michele Arcangelo stands on the top of the island. The building has a single nave cut by two round arches. The façade culminates in a bell tower in which one of the two bells bears the date 1291. This is one of the richest and most interesting churches in the Lake Trasimeno area from an artistic point of view.

The works preserved here cover a chronological span from the end of the 13th century to the 16th century. The frescoes adorning the walls follow pictorial styles ranging from Byzantine influences, passing through Cimabue, Giotto and Piero della Francesca, to the Renaissance language of Beato Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli and the all-Umbrian and lacustrine language of Pietro Vannucci, the Perugino.

Buildings that characterise the history of Isola Maggiore include Casa del Capitano del Popolo and the medieval Palazzetto, known as Casa Bartocci.

Adjacent to the Church of Buon Gesù, one can see the small palace known as the Casa del Capitano del Popolo (House of the Captain of the people). The building, with its pairs of elegant mullioned windows with two lights, has Gothic architectural elements that allow us to place it chronologically in the 14th century. The name may derive from the actual use of the house by some person who held the office of Capitano del Popolo (Captain of the people) in the municipal government of Perugia, demonstrating the strong interests that bound the Perugian municipality to this island on Lake Trasimeno. It is worth noting the clock, which was most probably inserted in the second half of the 18th century, when documents refer to a person in charge of its maintenance. Today, the building houses a documentation centre on the history of the island, an obligatory stop for those who want to learn more about the economic, artistic and social reality of Isola Maggiore.

Finally, Casa Bartocci is the building that most of all still shows its 14th-century character. Built in sandstone, it has three floors with a forepart on the right, the ground floor of which consists of a portico. Elegant single-light windows with round arches are distributed across the façade. The right portal is surmounted by the depiction of a coat of arms that is difficult to identify, perhaps a cross of some military order (sometimes identified with a Templar cross).