The Montecolino peninsula with its surrounding territory is located on the eastern shore of Lake
Iseo, between the hamlets of Covelo and Pilzone and extends over a surface area of
approximately 42,000 m2 of which approximately 17,000 m2 consist of a promontory and
approximately 25,000 m2 of flat area on which some old industrial buildings and other historic
buildings stand.
In the 18th century there is news of a rural building which in the early 1900s was renovated and
expanded by the consul Basilio Cittadini, a native of Pilzone and President of the Italians of
America who made it his residence in Italy.
The Consul understood the great landscape value of the hill and was the first to enhance it by
creating paths, enriching the plantings and building small service buildings.
The area became of strategic interest to the Royal Italian Army during the First World War and, in
the years 1917/1919, the consul ceded it for use to the army itself.
In the first half of the 1920s, the company “Aeroplani Caproni S.A.” of Milan Tagliedo acquired the
area and founded the “Cantieri di Idro-aeronautica di Montecolino” building the first six hangars
used for the construction and storage of seaplanes.
During the Second World War it was the headquarters of the X° MAS, a special corps established
within the Royal Navy, equipped with extremely light and fast vessels, the MAS (Motobarca Armata
Svan), capable of hitting and sinking large enemy ships.
The Peninsula was later occupied by a garrison of the German army who built some structures for
military use: the main one is on the top of the hill, and is a "lookout post" from which the sentries
watched over the entire lake.
There are also a couple of massive powder magazines well camouflaged in the thick vegetation
and even more interestingly, a tunnel dug into the rock that crosses the entire hill which served as
an air raid shelter.
In 1947, the brothers Gianni and Michele Bettoni purchased the Caproni factory and changed the
company name to “Montecolino S.p.A.”. The new company, thanks to the use of new textile fibers
(movil, meraklon, nylon, etc.), specialized in the production of both fabrics and yarns, starting from
the raw material to the finished product.
In 1983 the textile company moved, leaving the entire Montecolino area free.
In 1989 Michele Bettoni created the “Liliana and Michele Bettoni” Foundation to which he donated
the entire property of the area.
Now in Montecolino no more activities take place and the old warehouses remain, partly
dismantled, the villa of the consul Cittadini and the office building built in the 70s.
