 The Podestà of Arona was the main justice administrator for the Borromeo Counts over the area and was independent from both the Novara and Milan jurisdictions, the former controllers.The "state" was quite extended, it occupied almost a half of the modern Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola with an extension of around one thousand square kilometres.The "Borromeo's State" ended in 1797 with the invasion of Milan by Napoleon Bonaparte who revoked all the Borromeo's privileges and jurisdictions over this area; so the Borromeo maintained there only their ample estates as the Borromean Islands.