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Castello di Lugano

1499 establishments in EuropeBuildings and structures completed in the 15th centuryCastles in TicinoDemolished buildings and structures in SwitzerlandHouse of Sforza
Italian WarsUse American English from July 2026
Parco Ciani Castello di Lugano
Parco Ciani Castello di Lugano

The Castello di Lugano (also referred to as the Castello Maggiore or the Castello sforzesco di Lugano) was a fortress in Lugano, in what is now the Swiss canton of Ticino. It was erected between 1497 and 1499 on the plain of the Cassarate, outside the walls of the then-Milanese borough, on the orders of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Twice besieged by the forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy, it was captured in 1512–1513 and demolition began in 1517 on their orders. The castle stood for roughly two decades. Nothing of it is visible today: its site is occupied by Parco Ciani, Villa Ciani and the Palazzo dei Congressi, and its memory survives chiefly in the toponym Piazza Castello. Buried masonry was recorded during construction work in 1918 and again during the excavations for the Palazzo dei Congressi around 1970.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Castello di Lugano (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Castello di Lugano
Riva Giocondo Albertolli, Lugano Molino Nuovo

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N 46.004483333333 ° E 8.9559111111111 °
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Riva Giocondo Albertolli
6932 Lugano, Molino Nuovo
Ticino, Switzerland
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Parco Ciani Castello di Lugano
Parco Ciani Castello di Lugano
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BSI Ltd
BSI Ltd

BSI had been the oldest bank in the Swiss canton of Ticino until its integration into EFG Bank and the following renaming into EFG, which took place in 2017. Founded in 1873 in Lugano as the Banca della Svizzera Italiana, BSI was an institution that specialises in asset management and related services for private and institutional clients. In 1998, the bank became part of the Italian Generali group, one of the world's biggest insurance companies. In July 2014, Generali sold BSI to BTG Pactual for US$1.7 billion, a deal that CEO of the bank, André Esteves stated would make BTG Pactual a “global player in the asset management arena.”In February 2016 EFG International (SIX:EFGN), the global private banking group based in Zurich, announced the acquisition of the Lugano-based private bank, according to an agreement signed on 21 February 2016 with BSI's sole shareholder BTG Pactual. The transaction was finalized on November 1, 2016. Following the closing, BSI's activities have been integrated into EFG, market by market, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bahamas, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The integration of Monaco's activities is expected to take place by the end of the second quarter 2017. With the integration of the Swiss business, which took place at April 2017, the rollout of the renewed EFG brand has started in all locations where the legal integration of BSI has been completed and those businesses will operate solely under the EFG name.

Lugano
Lugano

Lugano (, UK also , Italian: [luˈɡaːno]; Ticinese: Lugan [lyˈɡãː]) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population (as of December 2020) of 62,315, and an urban agglomeration of over 150,000. It is the ninth largest Swiss city. The city lies on Lake Lugano, at its largest width, and, together with the adjacent town of Paradiso, occupies the entire bay of Lugano. The territory of the municipality encompasses a much larger region on both sides of the lake, with numerous isolated villages. The region of Lugano is surrounded by the Lugano Prealps, the latter extending on most of the Sottoceneri region, the southernmost part of Ticino and Switzerland. Both western and eastern parts of the municipality share an international border with Italy. Described as a market town since 984, Lugano was the object of continuous disputes between the sovereigns of Como and Milan until it became part of the Old Swiss Confederation in 1513. In 1803, the political municipality of Lugano was created, following the establishment of the canton. Since 1882, Lugano is an important stop on the international Gotthard Railway. The rail brought a decisive contribution to the development of tourism and more generally of the tertiary sector which are, to this day, predominant in the economy of the city. In 1956, Lugano hosted the first ever Eurovision Song Contest.

Canton of Lugano
Canton of Lugano

Lugano was the name of a canton of the Helvetic Republic from 1798 to 1803, with its capital at Lugano. The canton unified the former Landvogteien of Lugano, Mendrisio, Locarno and Valmaggia. As with the other cantons of the Helvetic Republic, the autonomy of Lugano was very limited, the republic having been founded by Napoleon in order to further centralise power in Switzerland. The canton was led by a Directory of five members, who appointed a "national préfet", the first of whom was Giacomo Buonvicini. The canton was riven with dispute between "patriots", supporting the Cisalpine Republic, and traditionalist "aristocrats". The politics of the central government — the seizure of church property, the introduction of direct taxation, mandatory military service, an amnesty favouring Cisalpine patriots and a law regarding municipalities that rejected the secular tradition of communal autonomy — as well as the military occupation by the French Revolutionary Armies, with its associated violence and requisitions, all combined to maintain a level of hostility to the new régime within the local population, which eventually rose up against the régime. In Lugano, during anti-French protests of 28 April and 29 April 1799, the printer Agnelli's was looted and the abbot Giuseppe Lodovico Maria Vanelli and other Cisalpine patriots were killed; the préfet Francesco Capra, who succeeded Buonvicini earlier that year, fled and power passed to a provisional government sympathetic to the Habsburgs. Similar protests erupted in Mendrisio and Locarno. The arrival of Austro-Russian troops led to further requisition and pillage, leading to further shortages amongst the local population. French occupation was restored in 1800, with further consequences for the Luganese. Commissioner Heinrich Zschokke re-established the authority of the Helvetic Republic on his arrival; a new préfet was appointed, Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Franzoni. After two abortive attempts to unite Lugano with Bellinzona in the first two years of the 19th century, popular discontent, combined with fiscal pressure and a disastrous economic situation, led to a revolt in Capriasca early in 1802, which led to the autumn pronunciamento of Pian Povrò, named for the location of a district general congress, between Massagno and Breganzona, which declared the independence of Lugano from the Helvetic client republic. With the Act of Mediation, the following year, political agitation was finally quelled, as were the struggles between unionists and federalists; merger with Bellinzona was at last completed, creating the Ticino, which endures to the present day.