At the foot of the Voltiano Lighthouse lies a 26-hectare park of exceptional scenic and historical interest, which is unexpectedly linked to the memory of Alessandro Volta himself. Created along a slope, it extends over several levels, among groves of chestnut, beech, cedar, and even redwood trees, Art Nouveau structures such as the greenhouse and a small building reminiscent of a cave, ending with a large grassy roundabout offering a remarkable panoramic view of Lake Como, Switzerland, and the Alps. It is called Parco Marenghi because when the Municipality of Brunate purchased the green space for 19 million lire in 1972, following negotiations with “Baroness Giuseppina Marenghi, widow of Acerbo” (yes, Mussolini’s minister himself), it undertook to maintain “the name of its founder […] also for the merits and esteem that the Marenghi family had earned among the population of Brunate.” In reality, the Marenghi family arrived in Brunate in the 1930s, and the park had already existed since at least 1900, when it gave its name to the nearby Hotel du Parc, now a private villa located at Via Alle Colme 5. Once you have passed through the entrance gate to the complex, look out for a tank covered with green sheet metal, next to the children’s playground. The connection to Volta lies hidden beneath: this is where water from the Fonte del Pertugio spring is collected. The spring was discovered by mineralogist Carlo Amoretti when he descended into the cave of the same name during an excursion with his friend Alessandro Volta, who held the rope for him, as Amoretti himself recounts in a letter dated August 28, 1785, written from Urio to an unspecified “lady.” . The water from this spring supplied the first villas built in San Maurizio at the end of the 19th century and is now used by the civil protection agency to extinguish fires.
