The dragons of the island of San Giulio

One legend has it that St. Julius, a preacher and warrior who lived in the fourth century A.D., wanting at all costs to build his hundredth church, pushed himself fìn to the shores of the lake and here, fascinated by the place, stayed to contemplate the island, which - it is said - was then haunted by dragons and snakes. The saint, not finding a boat, spread his cloak on the water and walking on it reached the island.

Casting out dragons and snakes by sheer force of speech, he began to build his hundredth church, in which he was later buried. Inside the basilica there are sacred sculptures representing dragons, and in the sacristy there is an ancient wrought-iron dragon above which hangs a bone, a huge real vertebra the size of a meter.