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Lugano is of ancient origins. There are sure traces of the small lake and rural borough dating back to the 10th century. It was the object of continuous ducal disputes (Como and Milan) and then Lugano and its Pievi became a Swiss dominion in 1513, a dominion that lasted until 1798, a year in which, under the pressure of the great European upheavals, it asked and obtained independence, thus becoming part of the Swiss Confederation. Lugano is still the home of the Fiera Grossa, one of the most important cattle fairs in Europe, from 1515 up to the beginning of the 20th century.

The meaning of the four letters LUGA appearing on the City’s coat of arms has given birth to the most bizarre hypotheses. However, they are simply the abbreviation of the name of the City, and not the initials of an acronym, as is proven by the Pieve’s primitive coat of arms and confirmed by the documents dated 18 October 1208 and 14 November 1209, whose now unobtainable original copies used to be kept in Sant’Ambrogio’s monastery in Milan.
The toponym “Lugano” is derived from the Latin common name lucus meaning “sacred wood” or simply wood. The origin of our City’s name is therefore linked to the designation of a settlement apparently characterised by its proximity to a wood.
Some examples of the coat of arms can be found in San Lorenzo Cathedral, where the coat of arms is carved on a holy water stoup and on two bells.
The colours are documented by a scroll dated 1588, which can be seen in Altdorf’s museum. It is a testimonial issued by the City to Sebastiano Beroldingen of Uri where the coat of arms of Lugano’s “Valley” depicts the silver cross on a red background.
On Altdorf’s Beroldingen Palace appeared not only Lugano’s coat of arms as a borough but also the coat of arms of the whole community. We said ‘appeared’ because they were destroyed in the 1799 fire.
On the facade of Loreto church a coat of arms of the City was painted in Renaissance style. On the facade of Lugano’s Civic Building the planner, the architect Moraglia, added the City’s coat of arms to the decoration by substituting the red background with the bipartite red and blue: the colours of the Canton.


Panoramic viewThe history of the urban development of the city of Lugano can be subdivided into four phases. The medieval form lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. After the shift from the old to the new regime (1798-1847), the social scene changed, and the city expanded beyond the traditional urban circle of walls limited by the gates which were pulled down. There was a change from the old form of the fortified borough to the open form of the modern city.
From 1880 to 1910 the city experienced, especially after the opening of Gotthard’s railway line, an exceptional demographic increase. During those thirty years the population growth was almost 8000 inhabitants, going from 6949 to 14998 units.
From 1900 to 1945 the City underwent important urban changes caused by another demographic increase and economic pressure which really changed radically the structure of the old town centre and of whole districts, such as, for example, the district of Sassello (1939-1949), which experienced a radical urban renewal, provided by the urban development plan at that time.

Hotel du Parc (1855)The shift from the medieval borough to the modern city occurred with the development of the tourist sector in the second half of the nineteenth century. The brothers Ciani and the hotel manager Alexander Béha were the protagonists of that change. In as early as 1855, with the opening of Albergo del Parco, those promoters managed to boost tourism in our region, by promoting the only resource which was then available and in which the City is extremely rich: the landscape and nature.