Its construction took place between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, due to a need for Defendente Carmati, a veteran of Garibaldi's "expedition of the Thousand", in which he participated at a young age.

When he returns I plan to continue the work started by his family. Being the owner of some shops in the Naggio hamlet, he often went with carts and mules to the lake port of Menaggio or to the city of Como to stock up on the food and materials needed for his shops.

The journey was often long and needing a refreshment point for himself, for his helpers and for the mules, he decided to build a warehouse in Cardano (a hamlet in the valley before embarking on the steep climb towards Naggio) where he could refresh himself and to rest and an excellent cellar to keep part of the foodstuffs and wines.

Thus was born the first version of what, years later, would be called "Agnello".

Over the years, the "warehouse" increasingly took the form of a house and in 1910, when her daughter got married, she gave it to him so that she could make it her own commercial activity.

Dina, her daughter, first opened a tavern and a grocery store. Later the tavern became a restaurant and then a restaurant with accommodation.

The grocery store was closed to make room for the inn.

Years went by, even the First World War passed, with many hardships, but in the meantime Dina and Angelo's daughters, Anita and Giovanna, grew up and the Agnello inn became a boarding house with bar, restaurant, rooms and cuisine much appreciated for its genuineness, the freshness of the food, all rigorously homemade and washed down with Angelo's exceptional wine.

Unfortunately, however, the 1940s came and brought the inexorable Second World War. In a large hotel in the village, the Hotel Miravalle, the Decima MAS took office, a flotilla that brought together the black shirts of the surroundings, the most cruel and perverse ones and who, with the excuse of the fascist ideal, gave free rein to their atrocities.

At that time, L'Agnello housed several people displaced from Milan to escape the danger of warfare or miraculously escaped certain death in concentration camps. Among the latter there were also two distinguished Jewish professors. In the middle of one night, a handful of troublemakers from the Tenth repeatedly machine-gunned the Lamb, as a warning and with the manifest promise of their soon return to kill both the owners and their guests.

As a result, the pension was emptied, the two professors left for Switzerland, with the agreement that they would make themselves heard after the war... but nothing more was heard of them.

After the liberation, Mussolini fleeing Italy, and unbeknownst to those who had foreseen the same towards Merano to then reach Germany, decided to cross the Swiss border via the Gandria customs. So on 04/26/1945 he stopped in Grandola with his retinue at the Hotel Miravalle, waiting for the Swiss border authorities to give the pass.

This did not happen, so the next day he resumed his journey to Merano and… what happened next is history.

On the afternoon of that April 26, the thugs of the Tenth did everything they could to accommodate Mussolini and his entourage.

The Lamb was defrauded of everything that was possible for them to take: from mattresses to various crockery, blankets, sheets, etc...

When Mussolini left, the owners of the pension went to the hotel to recover, at least in part, what had been stolen from them, but the sad reality was that there was nothing left. In a few hours everyone had taken everything away.

In the 70s the Agnello also became a pizzeria with Anna, Dina's niece and her husband Enrico, and in 1995, given the age of the owners Anita and Giovanna and the different paths taken by their descendants, it closed permanently.

And now here we are: Marika, daughter of Anna and Enrico, and Marco, her husband.

We listened to our house's request to welcome guests again and we look forward to welcoming you!

Why “Lamb”? We don't know... in old family photographs a lamb is often portrayed... but that's all we know.