Isola Madre is the largest island in Lake Maggiore at 220m wide and 330m long, located in northern Italy. In the 16th century, the Borromeo family began constructing their residence on the island and introduced citrus fruit cultivation. Today, Isola Madre is well known for its gardens which contain a variety of plant species from around the world.

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2. • Isola Madre, at 220 m wide and 330 m long, is the largest island of the Isola
Borromeeo archipelago which falls within the Italian part of the Alpine
LakMaggiore in the Province of Verbano Cusio Ossola, Piedmont. The island is
occupied by a number of buildings and architectural structures and is especially
well known for its gardens. In the past it was known as Isola di San Vittore and
later as Isola Maggiore
• The available historical sources indicate that in the middle of the ninth century the
island had a church, a cemetery (whose existence is recalled by the current
garden’s so-called scala dei morti, or “Staircase of the Dead”). It is known for
certain that olives were cultivated here; the produce may have been employed for
sacred purposes.
• In 1501 Lancillotto Borromeo, one of the five children of Giovanni III Borromeo
and Cleofe Pio di Carpi, introduced the cultivation ofcitrus fruit to the island, the
plants being brought from Liguria, along with a gardener (or hortolano) to tend
them. Lancillotto began the construction of the family residence on the island,
which in the 1580s was extended in the renaissance style by Renato I Borromeo.
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Isola Madre, Lago Maggiore, Italy. The
Borromeo Castle
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