Madesimo

Madesimo is a town with 537 inhabitants (as at 31 December 2012) in the Lombardy region in the province of Sondrio, at the foot of Pizzo Groppera.

Madesimo is located on the Splügenpassstrasse, near the border with the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the Val San Giacomo at Lake Montespluga and Lago di Isola. Said to 1984 Isolato parish includes the fractions Madesimo, Isola, Montespluga and Pianazzo where the municipality is located. Adjacent communities are Madesimo, Ferrera (CH- GR), Medels im Rheinwald (CH- GR), Mesocco (CH- GR), Piuro, Spliigen (CH- GR), Sufers (CH -GR).

The poet Giosuè Carducci spent many years in Madesimo his holidays.

The most famous descendant Madesimos is Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. One of his direct ancestors moved from there in the 16th century to Zurich to study and settled there.

On April 23, 1946, the corpse of Benito Mussolini was buried in Madesimo, which had previously been stolen by the fascists from the cemetery in Musocco in Milan. In 1957, the body was moved to its final resting place in Predappio.

In Madesimo found at the beginning of the twentieth century, the first ski race in the Alps instead. The municipality owns a ski area with a total of 48 kilometers of slopes. The highest hill station of the area is located on the Pizzo Groppera ( 2948 masl ). In this hill station Roger Schawinski taught the first transmitter of Radio 24, inaccessible for the Swiss radio regulatory authorities.

Madesimo had its heyday as a holiday station in the sixties of the last century, then, saw the place a construction boom. City dwellers in particular from Milan acquired here condominiums in multi-family houses or built holiday cottages. It has become quiet in Madesimo.

Gallery

Montespluga from south

Splügenstrasse by Montespluga

Cardinelloschlucht: historic mule track into the Val San Giacomo

Isola Lago di Isola