received with all honours the Emperor Ferdinand I, the Archduke Rainer and the Minister Metternich, who reached here from Varenna on the Lario, the first steamboat on the lake, having been launched in 1826. Bellagio was one of the localities most frequented by the Lombardy nobility and saw the construction of villas and gardens. Luxury shops opened in the village and tourists crowded onto the lakeshore drive. Space was not sufficient and it was decided to cover the old port which came up as far as the arcade in order to construct a large square.
Tourism had now become the principal economic resource of the people of Bellagio and from this period on the history of Bellagio coincides with that of its hotels. The first was the Hotel Bellagio, founded in 1825 from the transformation of the old hostelry of Abbondio Genazzini, which following this was turned into the first real hotel on the Lario, the Hotel Genazzini. Following the example of this precursor were founded in the space of a few years several splendid hotels many of which are still operating and frequently in the hands of the same families who founded them. A few names and date of opening: the Hotel Firenze, built on the old house of the Captain of the Lario in 1870, the Grand Hotel Bellagio (now the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni) inaugurated in 1872. In 1888 the three largest hotels (Genazzini, Grande Bretagne and Grand Hotel Bellagio) first introduced electric light substituting the gas illumination, and only after this were they followed by many patrician homes. Bellagio was one of the first Italian tourist resorts to become international, and since that time it never degenerated into a mass tourism place.
Villa Melzi d'Eril
The significant building, which overlooks the lake, was built between 1808 and 1815 by the architect Giocondo Albertolli upon a request by Francesco Melzi d'Eril, nominated Duke of Lodi by Napoleon himself and for whom he fulfilled the role of vice-president
