Lugano is first mentioned as a city in 875, but was already contained by name in an act of deed in 724 when King Luitprand of Lombardy donated it to the church of Saint Carpoforo in Como. In 1061, Pope Alexander II confirmed and extended these donations. The rest of the middle ages until 1513, Lugano spent as a play ball between the authorities of Como and the Dukes of Milano. At the end of the 14th century, having been part of the Duchy of Milan under the Visconti family for quite a long time, Lugano was conquered by the French General Mondragon, acting on behalf of King Louis XII.
As this proved to be a severe interruption of trade routes between the Swiss Confederacy in the north and the Italian states in the south, the Swiss stepped in and drove the French out of the cities between the Alps and Milan, annexing the lands as a joint dependency of all Swiss Confederate states in 1513. In a singularly arrogant gesture, they razed the castle at Lugano for being too expensive to keep it running. But having the most fearsome and best organized army at the time, their reputation was enough to keep Lugano safe for over 200 years.
When it was getting clear in 1796 that Switzerland would inevitably become part of Napoleon’s conquests, the Swiss Confederacy gave the citizens south of the Alps their freedom, erected a Republic and accepted them into the confederation as a partner of equal rights. With this move, they swayed Napoleon from integrating the lands into Italy; instead it became part of the Helvetic Republic. After Napoleons defeat, the Ticino, the Italian speaking Republic followed the other Swiss states into independence, a new Confederation, and eventually in 1848 into the United States of Switzerland.
In the 19th century, Lugano was a hot spot for members of the Italian Risorgimento. The members of this movement regularly used Lugano as their stay for exile when things were getting too hot to handle at home while Italy was trying to unify. At the same time, the city developed its main industry, tourism. Exploiting its extraordinary combination of beauty spots and climate, tourism is still the mainstay of the economy, apart from the usual Swiss vice, banking.
The coat of arms of Lugano is a simple white cross on red ground with four letters in the quadrants: LVGA. While these letters quite obviously constitute the first four letters of the city name (V being the Roman way of writing the modern U), some extraordinary theories have sprung up in this connection. One theory links the letters to Legio V Gallia Alpina, thereby giving the city a Roman connotation. The only source linking the fifth legion to Lugano I could find is in fact the reverse argument based on these selfsame letters in the coat of arms. Sort of the cat that bites its tail.
The city is dominated by mountains, the Bré Mountain (a pleonasm, as Bre derives from the Celtic word for mountain), Mount San Salvatore (Saint Savior Mountain) and the Verità Mountain (the mountain of Truth). On the other side you find the Lake of Lugano, a lake shared between Switzerland and Italy. Ferry services connect all the major towns on the lake in Switzerland and Italy.
The language spoken in town (as opposed to what I put in the title) is Lombardic (the Lombard tribes were part of the same movement as the Allemannic and German tribes after the downfall of the Roman Empire), but the official and written language is Italian. Famous people connected with the city include German writer Hermann Hesse, UN chief attorney Carla Del Ponte, human rights specialist Dick Marty, and a complete who is who of the Italian Risorgimento. The people of Lugano are never subjected to fun by the other Swiss as everybody is just glad to get there into the sun.
For further information on the city of Lugano you may want to go to the official homepage of the city government lugano.ch.
Further reading
City on The Language Divide: Fribourg
Lausanne: World Capital of Sports
Museum City: Basel
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