Until 1632 this small island was a rocky crag occupied only by a tiny fishing village. Then Carlo III of the House of Borromeo began building a palazzo
dedicated to his wife Isabella D’Adda, from whom the island takes its name. Work stopped when the Duchy of Milan suffered an outbreak of the plague,
but construction resumed later when the island passed to Carlo’s sons, who turned the villa into a venue for sumptuous parties for the nobility.
The gardens seen in this image were added in the 1670s. Isola Bella is today a popular tourist attraction with regular ferries from a number of towns
on the shores of Lake Maggiore.