Fiumelatte is a river in northern

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It flows from a cavity in the

Grigna The Grigna is a mountain massif in the province of Lecco, Lombardy, northern Italy, with an elevation of . It is part of the Bergamo Alps, and it has two peaks, Grignone or Grigna settentrionale(2,410m), the higher Northern, and the lower, Sout ...

into

Lake Como Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...

, just south of

Varenna Varenna (Comasco, Lecchese: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) on Lake Como in the Province of Lecco in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about north of Milan and about northwest of Lecco. Varenna was founded by local fishermen in AD 769 a ...

, it has an approximate length of 250 m (820 ft). The name , composed from (Italian for "river") and ("milk"), is due to the milky white color of its water. Leonardo da Vinci while staying in Lierna studied it for a long time and mentions it in his ''

Atlantic Codex The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was u ...

''. In the 1600s the sons of the high nobility had to visit it as part of the Grand Tour to form their culture. Fiumelatte

Overview

One of the river's peculiarities is its annual intermittency: it usually dries in the middle of October to reappear in the second half of March; therefore it has been given the nickname ("River of the two Madonnas"), alluding to the festivities of

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

(March 25) and Madonna del Rosario (October 7). This phenomenon could imply that the river is the vent of an unexplored underground cavity in the Grigna, which gets periodically filled. The river is mentioned by the name in

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

's ''

'': Other authors who wrote about the river include

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

and

Lazzaro Spallanzani Lazzaro Spallanzani (; 12 January 1729 – 11 February 1799) was an Italian Catholic priest (for which he was nicknamed Abbé Spallanzani), biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily function ...

History

The village of Fiumelatte has a nearby memorial dedicated to members of a

partisan Partisan(s) or The Partisan(s) may refer to: Military * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line ** Francs-tireurs et partisans, communist-led French anti-fascist resistance against Nazi Germany during WWII ** Ital ...

brigade shot on January 8, 1945, following the capture of

Esino Lario Esino Lario (; Lecchese: ; locally ) is a municipality () of the Province of Lecco in the Italian region of Lombardy. It is about north of Milan, northwest of Lecco, and about from the eastern shore of Lake Como. The area around Esino Lario ...

. The six partisans were killed after returning to the valley to alert the command of the encroachment in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

References

External links

Fiumelatte
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiumelatte (River) Rivers of Italy Rivers of Lombardy Rivers of the Province of Lecco Waterfalls of Lombardy