Villa Pliniana

This guide to Villa Pliniana on Lake Como opens with generations of boatmen who swore this cliffside loggia was haunted, ever since the villa's builder, Giovanni Anguissola, died here in 1578. Decades earlier, Anguissola had helped stab to death Pier Luigi Farnese, ruler of Parma and Piacenza, and locals began saying the murdered duke's ghost prowled the loggia where he could never rest. Two and a half centuries later, a runaway prince hid out here with his mistress, Anne-Marie Berthier, in the 1820s. Best heard standing on the loggia itself, looking down at the dark water below.