Gondola Hall

“An enchanting journey through the luxurious homes of Como.”

The boats tell the story of the magnificent villas of Como and the noble families who spent time on Lake Como over the centuries.

In the 18th century, the first luxurious villas were built on Lake Como, and with them came the need for pleasure boats and family yachts.
At the time, the Venetian gondola was a true status symbol; gondolas sailed on the Thames, the Seine, and in canals throughout Europe, all the way to St. Petersburg.
It is not hard to believe that, as early as the 18th century, the lords of Lake Como vied with one another to own the most beautiful pleasure boat, and the Venetian gondola seemed the most suitable for satisfying this desire for elegance and prestige.
The shipwrights of Lake Como were highly skilled builders of warships, transport vessels, and workboats, but they lacked experience in building boats for the nobility; the aristocrats, in fact, preferred to turn to the refined Venetian shipwrights, among whom Ferdinando Taroni stood out.
According to the municipal records of Carate Lario, the Taroni family had already owned land on the lake as early as 1270 and then, for unknown reasons, moved to Venice around 1400, where they learned the noble art of shipbuilding at the arsenals of the Serenissima.
Given the growing demand and the great opportunities offered by the Como market, the Taroni family decided to return permanently to Lake Como, and in 1790 they opened their shipyard in their hometown, Carate Lario.
Their advertisement read:

He offers to build all kinds of boats for lakes, rivers, and garden ponds—both simple and elegant—having acquired the necessary skills for this purpose at the Venice Arsenal under the guidance of the renowned curator Angelo Albanese.