Lonato del Garda

Lonato del Garda sits on a low morainic hill on the southwestern side of Lake Garda, between Brescia and the Mincio, halfway between Milan and Venice. The Rocca was raised from 1376 by Regina della Scala, wife of Bernabò Visconti, who recognised the strategic position; the castle that survives was reshaped in the 15th and 16th centuries to its current form, a 180-metre central structure on the upper level with the so-called Quartier Generale below. The Casa del Podestà, mid-15th-century seat of the Venetian rectors, was bought in 1906 by the Brescian senator Ugo da Como and his wife Maria Glisenti and turned into a museum-residence: rooms fully furnished with paintings, sculpture and majolica, and one of the largest private libraries in northern Italy with more than 52,000 volumes and a notable collection of incunabula. The commune is one of the five Lugana DOC producers, the white wine made from the Turbiana grape on the lake's southern flats since Roman times.