Lungolago G. Zanardelli

The lakefront promenade named for statesman Giuseppe Zanardelli is Salò's public drawing room: a level, tree-lined walk following the curve of the wide gulf, with the town's palaces on one side, open water and mountains on the other, and a statue of the violin pioneer Gasparo da Salò watching over the boats.

Why it matters

Salò turns its face to the lake along this promenade, and every major civic building of the historic town stands within a stone's throw of it. The official Garda Lombardia tourism portal presents the town around "lo splendido golfo", the splendid gulf, and places the statue of Gasparo da Salò, called the father of the modern violin, directly on the lakeside walk. The road itself carries the name of Giuseppe Zanardelli, the Brescian lawyer and politician who served as President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from February 1901 until his resignation in 1903, the statesman whose advocacy did much to open the Brescian shore to tourism. The lungolago connects Salò's history, from the Venetian magistracy to the resort era, with the monumental town hall.

What to notice

The arcaded Palazzo della Magnifica Patria sets a monumental tone against the mountain wall that closes the gulf. The statue of Gasparo da Salò commemorates the sixteenth-century master of Brescian violin making and his connection to the lake. The historic facades, cathedral quarter and arcades stand behind the promenade, while mature trees and the public gardens form part of its civic landscape.

Context and history

The promenade belongs to the season in which Salò reinvented itself as a resort. The name commemorates Giuseppe Zanardelli, born in Brescia in 1826, a unification-era deputy, three times President of the Chamber and head of government from February 1901, whose biographers note his ties to the Garda shore: he died at Maderno, along the same shore, on 26 December 1903. The lakeside walk took his name as the town's tourist vocation matured in the early twentieth century, and it has remained the stage of Salò's public life since, from promenading seasons to the lakeside interventions that followed the 1901 earthquake and the later reconstruction of the palace quarter. The promenade forms part of the historic urban fabric linking the museum complex of Santa Giustina with the cathedral quarter.