The first mention of Lierna dates to 854 AD, but Roman remains, including a mosaic floor now in the Palazzo Belgioioso of Lecco, attest to much earlier settlement.

Lierna was contested between Milan and Como, and between the Della Torre and Visconti families.

It passed into the hands of the Marchesino Stanga in 1499, and in 1533 to the Sfondrati family [it] of Cremona, who held it until 1788.

[4] He left some preparatory plaster casts to the comune; a museum to house them is under construction.

[5] In 1933 an incomplete fossil of Lariosaurus balsami, a nothosaurid from the Middle Triassic (circa 240 million years ago) of which the first example was discovered at Perledo, some 10 km north of Lierna, was found in a quarry in the frazione of Grumo.