Climate

Esino Lario, like most of the Valsassina valley, features a humid, temperate climate, cooler than in the Po Valley due to the higher elevations. At the nearest weather station, in Barzio, (elevation 770 metres (2,530 ft) — Esino Lario's elevation is about 100 metres (330 ft) higher), mean annual temperature is around 10 °C/50 °F (compare, for example, with around 13 °C (55 °F) in Milan). Precipitation is abundant, with more than 1,700 millimetres (67 in) falling in an average year. Rainfall is frequent in every season, with a little less in winter when there can be snowfall. As in most temperate climates, there are prolonged and well-defined intermediate seasons.

Summers are moderate, with frequent rain showers and thunderstorms. Mean summer temperature is around 19 °C (66 °F), higher in July and August, and slightly lower in June; even during the most intense heat waves, maximum temperatures rarely exceed 32 °C (90 °F). Winters are quite mild; the average temperature for December, January, and February is around 1–2 °C (34–36 °F), more or less the same temperature recorded in the Po Valley at much lower elevations. This is due to the phenomenon of inversion (a deviation from the normal atmospheric behaviour, where temperature increases with elevation) frequently observed in midwinter when subtropical high-pressure systems reach northern Italy. Winters can become snowy, as extratropical cyclones carry moist and cool air from the North Atlantic.

Prehistory, Celts and Romans

Fossils preserved in the Museum of Grigne

The last glaciation of the quaternary period, the Würm, began 70,000 years ago covering the Como area, and it profoundly changed the land's appearance – shaping the sides of the mountains, creating fertile moraine terraces, leaving many signs of its passage with boulders. The landscape of Esino Lario testifies to the Alpine orogeny with the presence of fossils, boulders, and caves.

Human presence in the territory is documented since the Neolithic period. Esino archaeological findings from the 5th century BC show that the area was a crossing point of the main road along the eastern shore of the lake, reaching Colico and the valleys of the Adda and Imera; because of overhanging rocks between Mandello and Bellano, from Lierna the road climbed to Ortanella (currently a frazione of Esino) subsequently declined to Vezio and Bellano. Archaeological finds testify numerous tombs and Celtic necropolis in Esino Lario. The area was a strategic point with detachments of warriors-pastors. During the late Western Roman Empire, to defend themselves from the incursions of the barbarians, the Romans prepared protective lines that communicated with each other by fires at night and smoke in the daytime. Castle Esino – of which only a tower remains – was one of the fortified points added to a defensive chain. Other archaeological finds with tombs buried document the period.

La Tène culture pendant decorated with ducks.

Middle Ages

At the fall of the Western Roman Empire, after the domination of Odoacer and of the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines conquered Italy during the Gothic War. Immediately after, however, the Lombards came down from Friuli and in 569 conquered Milan. A contingent from the Byzantine Empire, under the command of magister militum Francione, resisted in Esino Lario for 20 years, avoiding the large reprisals that followed the death of king Alboin and housing wealthy Roman refugees. In the end, Francione had to repair in Isola Comacina and, after six months of siege, surrender. The territory was finally conquered by the Lombard king Authari.

Private act granting self-rule to Esino Lario, 1697.

Towards the end of the 12th century, Esino Lario entered the General Community of Valsassina, a free commune. It lays its statutes, derived from ancient practices.^[10] Each village was administered by its board, formed by the heads of families. A unique representative of both Esino Superiore and Iniferiore took part in the Council of the Community General, which was based in Introbio.

The Spanish domination

In the first decades of the sixteenth century, the eastern Lario was close to the armies involved in the dispute between France and Spain. An adventurer, Gian Giacomo Medici, attempted to form a principality on Lake Como and a fleet take long in check the forces of Francesco II Sforza. Bellano was plundered and famine raged in every village. A duke died without heirs, and Milan went to the Spanish in 1535. There followed two centuries of gradual decay: the archives of Esino reveal misery, oppression, robberies, and injustices. The only glimmer of light is the two pastoral visits of Charles Borromeo to Esino in 1565 and in 1582. The plague of 1630 claimed many victims in Valsassina; fifty in Esino. Along the rest of the century, then, was a continuous drip of starvation and hunger. In the late 17th century, despite the ancient privileges, Valsassina became a feud chamber.

Italian unification

A man with a mule transporting bundles of wood at Ponte di Vigna

Although a small town and then very poor, Esino participated in the Risorgimento movement (Italian reunification). At the news of the revolt in Milan in 1848, a group came from Lecco and joined volunteers in the Esino Lario to come to the aid of the Milanese in their Five Days Rebellion. The first 50 years of the Kingdom of Italy were of economical crisis: wood was no longer required for the coal needed for melting furnaces, and could only be sold afar.

The reduction of glaciers was in progress, reducing the cultivated land, and population growth soon pushed emigration. Despite this decline, some public works were performed in the town: there were newly cobbled streets to the lake and to the mountain, and two aqueducts for public fountains were also constructed.

20th century

After World War I, the local economy was boosted by the construction of a new agro-forestry-pastoral road,^[11] opened in 1925. The upper and lower municipalities merged in 1927 to form the new town of Esino Lario.^[9]

During late World War II, guerilla warfare against the Wehrmacht and RSI troops took place in the area. In 1958, the road from Lake Como was widened and paved, and in 1957 it reached Ortanella.