Legend holds that Julius, a fourth century evangelist, crossed to this islet in the middle of Lake Orta on his cloak to clear it of serpents and dragons before founding a chapel, and a Romanesque basilica replaced earlier churches on the same spot by the twelfth century.
A seminary building from the 1840s, raised over the ruins of a medieval castle, has housed a closed Benedictine community of nuns since 1976, so the convent itself stays off limits to visitors. The single lane that circles the island, barely wide enough for two people to pass, is signposted as the Way of Silence, its stone markers carrying short meditations on quiet rather than street names. A handful of families still live here year round among the mostly seasonal houses, and the whole loop takes only about twenty minutes on foot.
