The hamlet of Corenno Plinio is one of the most characteristic corners of lake Como. This place is imbued with history and it is still easy to imagine what life on the lake was like in the Middle Ages. The medieval village grew up around the castle and the church at the top of the headland. With its old houses, uniform details, porticoes and decorations, Corenno is a unique, one-of-a-kind place. The best view is from the lake, with the old patrician homes on top of the cliff and the steep flights of steps cut in the rock leading up to the cobbled square. Although the origins of Corenno date much further back, its history is closely linked to the Andreani family of counts, feudal lords of the Archbishop of Milan Ottone Visconti from 1271. The name Plinio was added in 1863, in honour of the Roman Consul Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus. The castle was erected in the 10th century on the site of an ancient fortress. It was not built as a dwelling, but as an enclosed fortress that had to withstand numerous assaults, especially in the 14th century, when the part of Corenno towards the lake was destroyed by fire. The privately-owned castle is a massive construction built on Roman foundations and has an irregular but basically square floor plan. It dates back to between 1360 and 1370. The walls crowned by battlements served to protect the patrol path. This is a typical example of a castle-enclosure, i.e. a fortification built to provide a refuge for the population in case of attack. The material used for the construction followed the standards of ‘opus gallicus’, and mainly consisted of rocks excavated at the site or taken from the shores of the lake. The castle has two towers: one open towards the inside located above the only entrance facing the village, the other square-shaped and standing at the north-east corner. The moat around the castle, mentioned in the Statute of Dervio town council in 1389, was filled in between 1825 and 1830 when the military road was built (now provincial road number 72). The castle constituted the nucleus around which the village of Corenno developed with its picturesque streets cut into the rock.