Lecco’s history and its dominations

Great splendor for the fortified village of Lecco under the Visconti’s and then the Sforza’s, Milanese noble families, that during the fourteenth and fifteenth century dominated Lecco.
At Francesco II Sforza’s death in 1535, without heirs, Lecco was under Spanish domination till early eighteenth-century to pass then under Austrian one. In 1797 Austrian emperors gave Lecco to the French due to Napoleone Bonaparte’s victory in northern Italy and Milan became the capital of the Cisalpine Republic.
After Napoleone’s defeat, the Congress of Vienna decided to not restore the Ducky of Milan, thus belonging to the Lombard-Venetian kingdom, under Austrian empire.
During Risorgimento two events shaped Lecco’s history: the firs Independence war with the well-know Five days of Milan in 1848 and the Second Independent war in 1859 when Lombardy became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia until the reach of Unification of the Kingdom of Italy on 7 March 1861

Cover’s image by “Le fortificazioni di Lecco: origini di una città”, Ed. Mondadori Electa