Piazza Carducci, the village’s living room, was formerly a port called Gazzara. Here, distinguished travellers arrived by steamer from Desenzano, attracted by the fame of Sirmione, on the wings of the verses of Catullus, which soon spread beyond their national borders. The “venusta Sirmio” fascinated Queen Margaret, Giosuè Carducci, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce among many others. In less distant times, from the second half of the twentieth century, it became a destination for the international jet-set. But it is Maria Callas who is linked to the name of the peninsula: "I am so homesick for Sirmione" - she confided to a friend, shortly before her death in Paris on 16 September 1977. The famous soprano, in fact, spent long periods in Sirmione, resting in the Sirmionese villa belonging to her husband, Giovan Battista Meneghini, away from the stress of her intense artistic activity.