An Archive Among the Waters

While browsing the collections of the Borromeo Archive, one often comes across maps, drawings, watercolors, parchments, and documents related to the theme of boats and transportation via waterways.

The figure at the top, for instance, depicts a vessel flying the British flag and belongs to a group of reproductions of boats and "peote" preserved among the archive's papers. The artist is unknown, although one reproduction bears the inscription "Drawn by Fava."

The same collection includes other magnificent watercolor drawings of boats (figure below).

The archive also contains older representations of boats. For the wedding of Carlo IV Borromeo Arese, grandson of Vitaliano VI, with Giovanna Odescalchi, niece of Pope Innocent XI, celebrated in 1677, a grand celebration was organized that lasted several days. It included a lake crossing by boat, triumphal arches, and cannon shots from the fortress. The engineer Andrea Biffi, with suggestions from Vitaliano, the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Barella, and Carlo Maria Maggi, designed the plans for some boats, which were conceived as true theatrical machines on water, adorned with statues and ephemeral symbolic decorations (figure below).

Boats have always been the only means of reaching the islands and transporting objects and people. The archive also bears witness to the evolution of this means of transport over the centuries, as evidenced by the 1836 drawing: "of the first steam-powered machine that crossed the waters of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. Produced in the renowned Soho workshop near Birmingham directed by the illustrious Watt, with a power of 14 to 16 horsepower, drawn by the current machinist director of the same, Pietro Miani of Venice" (figure below).

Among the numerous illustrious visits that characterized Lake Maggiore starting from the 1700s, the flyer from 1828 reminds us of the voyages of the steamboat Verbano for the visit of Prince Carlo Felice of Savoy and his consort Maria Cristina of Bourbon to the Borromean Islands (figure below).