Solid state at Varenna

In 1160 there was a war between the towns of Milano and of Como in the part of Europe which is now Italy. Though the war had no earth‐shaking results, it had some aftereffects which now, several centuries later, have most agreeable consequences for physicists. The story is as follows: Near Como, which lies on the beautiful Lake of Como, there was a Benedictine cloister on a small island Isola Comacina. Scared by the catastrophic defeat of Como at the hands of the Milanese, the monks fled across the lake to a tiny village, Varenna, perched on its steep easterly shores. There they established their headquarters and some 300 years later, in 1484, built a new splendid monastery. The monastery grew and became very rich and powerful in the sixteenth century. In fact, it grew so strong that it had to be suppressed by the Pope, closed up, and the whole estate sold. The place became, in turn, the property of various rich Italian and German families who embellished and enriched it until in 1925 it was acquired as “Villa Monastero” by Dr. DeMarchi from Milano, the same town which nearly eight centuries earlier had caused indirectly the monastery to be established in Varenna in the first place. In 1938, Dr. DeMarchi, who was greatly interested in science, willed the villa and another one in Pallanza on Lake Maggiore to the Italian State to use it for scientific purposes. The villa in Pallanza became an “Institute of Hydrobiology”, while the Villa Monastero remained unused for years.