Lenno

This guide to Lenno on Lake Como follows a small unmarked cross on a hillside lane above the village, and the afternoon of April 28, 1945, when a partisan unit stopped a car carrying Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci as they fled toward Switzerland. It traces the movements of the man known only by his wartime alias, Colonel Valerio, and the absence of any judge, jury or formal charge before the guns were raised. Down on the lakefront, none of that violence touched Lenno's villa gardens and ferry landings directly.