Rapallo (Rapallo in Liguria) is an Italian town of 29 711 inhabitants in the metropolitan city of Genoa in Liguria. The town is famous for having been the seat of two important peace treaties after the First World War, one between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1920, and the other between the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union in 1922.
In the past centuries it was the churches and their parish
communities that contributed to the religious and civil development of
the different nucleuses, guided by the main figures of the various
parish priests. As we learn in various historical documents, especially
concerning the first millennium, the individual inhabitants sought in
their church or parish a sort of spiritual and moral guide who would
guide them in their daily life.
Almost all the fractions are led
by their own autonomous parish, grouped in the vicariate of
Rapallo-Santa Margherita Ligure, forming part of the diocese of
Chiavari. The district of Sant'Anna itself, despite being an integral
part of the city, with the increase in population after the second war
was separated from the Rapallo matrix in 1968 as an autonomous parish,
the only case in the city area.
Among the oldest religious
buildings in the historic village of Rapallo are the parish church of
Santo Stefano (11th century), the oratory of the Disciplinanti (15th
century) and the neoclassical basilica of Saints Gervasio and Protasio,
but of medieval origins. In the immediate vicinity of the historic
center, not far from the sixteenth-century castle on the sea, the church
and former convent complex of San Francesco d'Assisi dates back to the
sixteenth century and, towards the eastern part, the former monastic
complex of the Poor Clares, today converted into a state school
building, municipal auditorium-theater and municipal museum.
Further evidence of religious and monastic life is represented by the
ruins, although well preserved in some parts of the building, of the
thirteenth-century monastery of Valle Christi, near the golf course on
the road to the Rapallo hamlet of San Massimo, and still by the ruins of
the oldest Romanesque monastery of San Tommaso from the 11th century in
the neighborhood of the same name in the hamlet of Santa Maria del
Campo. In the same hamlet there is the seventeenth-century sanctuary of
the Madonna di Caravaggio, reachable through paths and ancient mule
tracks and which, together with the more famous sanctuary of Nostra
Signora di Montallegro, at about 600 meters above sea level and with a
wide panoramic view of the entire gulf of Rapallo, bears witness to the
centuries-old religious and popular devotion.
Built on a hill 612 meters above sea level, after the apparition of
the Madonna to the farmer Giovanni Chichizola on 2 July 1557, the
sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Montallegro is considered one of the main
Marian sanctuaries in Liguria. Patroness of Rapallo and historically of
its ancient captaincy since 1739, as well as co-patron of the diocese of
Chiavari together with Nostra Signora dell'Orto di Chiavari, the
sanctuary is a pilgrimage destination especially on the occasion of the
annual patronal festivities, celebrated in the first three days of July.
Built between 1558 and 1559 with funds from the inhabitants of Rapallo
on the site of the Marian apparition, the structure was considerably
transformed during the 17th and 19th centuries. The current facade,
marble and characterized by the presence of spiers, is the work of 1896
on a project by the architect Luigi Rovelli.
On 1 and 2 July
2007, on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the Marian apparition
in Montallegro, the sanctuary received the joint visit of the then
Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone and the archbishop of Genoa
Angelo Bagnasco, former president of the Episcopal Conference Italian.
The two visits can be considered historic since it is the first time in
the documented history of the sanctuary that a Secretary of State of the
Holy See and a president of the CEI have climbed the Rapallo hill to
visit the religious building; Cardinal Domenico Tardini who visited him
in 1957 assumed, in fact, this office only the following year.
The current religious building, located in the locality of the same name in the hamlet of Santa Maria del Campo, was built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the site of a pre-existing votive chapel. During the mid-eighteenth century the sanctuary fell into abandonment, due to religious conflicts between the curia of Rapallo and the parish community of Campese, which was followed by a subsequent demolition of the place of worship in 1790 by order of the Senate of the Republic of Genoa. With the separation of the parish church of Santa Maria del Campo from the Rapallo matrix, the sanctuary was rebuilt again in 1838 in the current style and architectural forms.
Located in the immediate historic center of Rapallo, the current
archipresbyterial basilica of Saints Gervasio and Protasio was rebuilt
between the 17th and 18th centuries to replace a previous medieval cult
building. According to a commemorative plaque in the basilica, the
dedication to the two saints could date back to 1118, with a papal bull
from Pope Gelasius II, although historians have never found a documented
and reliable source on that date.
In ancient times its parish
jurisdiction extended to the west, from the village of Portofino to the
various and scattered localities of today's municipality of Santa
Margherita Ligure, beyond Cicagna and up to the eastern villages of San
Pietro and Rovereto (today two distinct hamlets in the municipalities of
Zoagli and Chiavari). However, still today his parish, after the
successive territorial divisions, is considered the most numerous in the
diocese of Chiavari with about 18,000 inhabitants-parishioners.
During the air raids by the Allies, in July 1944, the basilica was hit
by a bomb which, in addition to some victims and numerous injuries,
caused the destruction of the nave to the right of the main entrance.
The adjacent bell tower, leaning and dating back in its final forms
to 1753, with its 67 meters of height appears to be the tallest bell
tower in Liguria.
The ancient parish church of Santo Stefano, also known as the oratory
of the Blacks, is located in the heart of the historic center of Rapallo
and, according to the main local historical sources, it was the first
Christian religious building to be built in the Rapallo area. The first
official document that states its presence is a deed of sale dated July
1155.
Its construction should date back roughly to a period
before the nearby basilica of Saints Gervasio and Protasio and it is
part, together with the oratory of the Santissima Trinità (the latter
known as the oratory of the Bianchi), of the adjacent civic tower
(which, erroneously, it is considered the bell tower of the parish
church), and the complex of the municipal building (formerly the
hospital of Sant'Antonio), of that original nucleus which gave life to
the primitive community of Rapallo in medieval times.
The current
appearance of the facade (restored in 2011-2012) dates back to the
changes made in the 17th century by the confraternity of Death and
Prayer which probably erased the ancient and typical Lombard
Romanesque-style facade visible, for example, in the contemporary parish
church of Sant'Ambrogio ad Uscio.
The church and the former convent complex of San Francesco d'Assisi,
in the homonymous square, date back to 1519. The convent, adjacent to
the church, was restored and handed over to the Franciscan Friars Minor
in 1601 by papal order of Pope Clement VIII. Suppressed and converted
into a primary school in 1798 with the Ligurian Republic, in 1812 the
Napoleonic imperial government ceded the two ecclesiastical premises to
the administration of the hospital of Sant'Antonio (the latter is the
current seat of the town hall).
In 1850 the royal school-college
became the property of the Municipality of Rapallo which chose to
entrust the school management to the order of the Somascan fathers,
still established today.
In the past centuries, in addition to the presence of numerous
churches in the city and in the hamlets, various convents and
monasteries were founded and built to feed the already present monastic
life of the place. Among the best known, and declared a national
monument, is the Valle Christi monastery in the hamlet of San Massimo,
built in the early 13th century by the masters of Como and officially
opened to the cloistered order in 1203.
Due to the increasingly
frequent Turkish incursions it was disabled in 1568, with a papal bull
of Pius V, with the transfer of the nuns to nearby houses or to other
monastic places in the area. Closed to religious worship, the structure,
starting from that date, suffered an inexorable decline and "stripped"
of all furnishings; some parts of the building, especially stones, were
also used by the inhabitants for the construction of residential
buildings.
The complex belongs to the municipal heritage and has
become a theater for cultural events. In the summer, the area adjacent
to the monastic complex is transformed into an open-air theater stage
with valuable cultural performances presented by the great contemporary
theater masters.
The first stone of the Poor Clares monastic complex was laid on
December 24, 1633, but with the construction works that lasted a long
time due to the lack of the necessary funds. Only in 1670 was the
convent declared ready to host the first nuns of the order of Santa
Chiara da Montefalco, but new setbacks postponed the religious retreat
to 1689.
With the purchase of the entire complex by the civic
administration in 1899, and with the definitive religious abandonment in
1902, an entire work of conversion of the building for school and
municipal uses was started. The demolition of the boundary walls and a
wing of the convent for the enlargement of the new carriage road, the
current state road 1 Via Aurelia, dates back to the first decade of the
twentieth century.
After the two world conflicts, where the
structure was used for multiple purposes (especially as a
warehouse-deposit or as a boat shed), and therefore after being
abandoned until 1964, with a 1972 project the premises hosting the
former church were definitively converted in the current location of the
city theatre-auditorium. The rooms on the ground floor of the former
convent are the seat of the civic museum "Attilio e Cleofe Gaffoglio".
The building now houses the branch of the classical and linguistic high
school "Giovanni Da Vigo - Nicoloso da Recco".
In the locality of San Tomaso, the historic district of the Rapallo district of Santa Maria del Campo, the remains of the church-cenoby of San Tomaso are located in private land. The original complex has partially collapsed leaving only a few ruins. Its construction dates back to 1159 or 1161, thanks to funds from various donations from Genoa. Its definitive deconsecration dates back to 1582, leaving the monastery completely abandoned.
Dating back to the second half of the 15th century, the oratory of
the Santissima Trinità or dei Bianchi is located in the historic center
of Rapallo near the ancient parish church of Santo Stefano and the town
hall.
Starting from this century it became the seat of the local
fraternity of the Disciplinanti, previously established in the premises
of the nearby parish church, and which assumed the name "dei Bianchi"
due to the color of the characteristic jackets; still today a marble
plaque, placed outside the oratory, on the façade, portrays two hooded
brothers with the scourge in their hand.
Ancient church of Sant'Anna, built in 1629, in the Sant'Anna
district.
Parish Church of Sant'Anna. The new building of worship, in
a contemporary architectural style, in the southernmost area of the
Sant'Anna district, was built between 2005 and 2016. The dedication
ceremony of the new parish took place on 23 July 2016 in the presence of
the bishop of Chiavari Monsignor Alberto Tanasini.
Church of San
Gerolamo Emiliani, built in the early sixties of the twentieth century.
Church of Sant'Agostino in the locality of the same name in the Cerisola
district.
Church of San Bartolomeo, from the 17th century, in the
locality of the same name in the Borzoli district.
Church of Saints
Gervasio and Protasio in the locality of the same name in the Costaguta
district.
Church of San Rocco in the locality of the same name in the
Seglio district.
Monastery of San Giuseppe of the Order of Discalced
Carmelite nuns along the provincial road 58 of Crocetta for Coreglia
Ligure and the Fontanabuona valley.
Former Anglican church of Saint
George, built in 1902, declared a national monument since 2001. Today
the building is privately owned. The funeral of the English writer and
caricaturist Max Beerbohm was celebrated in this church on May 20, 1956.
Former German Evangelical Church. Its construction, in neo-Gothic style,
was commissioned at the beginning of the twentieth century for the
evangelical worship of the numerous guests of the German community
present on site. Inaugurated in 1909 in the area to the east of the
city, near the current international tourist port, the structure was
then closed to religious worship in the following years. Still privately
owned by a family from Rapallo, the church was reopened in the 1990s,
but converted to Roman Catholic worship. Today the church is entitled as
an oratory of Santa Maria Madre della Chiesa and officiated by a priest
appointed by the episcopal curia of Chiavari.
Former church of San
Vincenzo, no longer existing, near the Cappelletta hill. The ancient
cult building is mentioned in a deed of sale dated November 3, 1257,
located near the cypress grove between today's via Villagrande and
Salita Cappelletta, almost close to the motorway layout. Another
document, a will dated 7 December 1501 by the local Tommaso Lencisa,
left the church of San Vincenzo forty sous for its restoration and
restoration; it was the priest Giorgio Figallo who took charge of the
work and for this work he received the patronage from the vicar general
of the archbishop of Genoa. It was, in fact, the last written and
certified mention of the rural church of Cappelletta as no mention of
this building was made in the 1582 visit of the apostolic visitor
Monsignor Francesco Bossi to the Rapallo lands. There is a high
probability that already in the seventeenth century the ancient church
fell either into disuse as a place of worship, or into abandonment if
not completely demolished as there are no longer any tangible or visible
traces of its existence on site.
Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the hamlet of Montepegli,
built in 1910.
Parish church of San Martino in the hamlet of San
Martino di Noceto. Formerly belonging to the care of the parish church
of Santa Maria del Campo, and created independent from the XIII century,
it was elevated to the title of provostship in 1826. The consecration of
the church took place on 11 September 1926 by Bishop Amedeo Casabona.
According to some sources, Saint Honorato died here in 572, archbishop
of Milan, who transferred the Milanese curia to Genoa to escape the
Lombards of Alboino.
Parish church of San Massimo in the hamlet of
the same name. Parish since the thirteenth century, the church was
consecrated on March 5, 1917 by the Chiavari bishop Monsignor Giovanni
Gamberoni. In the parish territory there is also the monastery of Valle
Christi.
Parish church of San Maurizio in the hamlet of San Maurizio
di Monti. The first acts of the parish register date from 1526, even if
the parish was established in the 12th century. Provost from 26 May
1935, it also had among its dependencies the parish church of San Nicolò
di Coreglia Ligure and the parish church of San Giacomo di Canevale.
Inside is the fresco depicting the apparition of the Madonna hodegetria.
Parish church of San Michele Arcangelo in the hamlet of San Michele di
Pagana. Dating back to 1133, it underwent structural transformations
between 1581 and 1603 and again between 1749 and 1753. Among the
pictorial works preserved there is the famous painting by Antoon van
Dyck: Jesus on the cross flanked by Saint Francis, Saint Bernard and the
noble Francis Orero. Blessed Brigida Morello, founder of the Ursuline
Order, was baptized in this church.
Parish church of San Pietro
apostle in the hamlet of San Pietro di Novella. The parish originally
had, under its jurisdiction, the communities of Sant'Andrea di Foggia
and San Quirico d'Assereto. He has been magistrate since 29 June 1935.
Parish church of Nostra Signora del Carmine in the hamlet of Sant'Andrea
di Foggia. Consecrated by the bishop of the diocese of Chiavari
Monsignor Amedeo Casabona on 29 April 1928, the oldest deeds in the
parish registers date back to 1606.
Parish church of San Quirico in
the hamlet of San Quirico d'Assereto, whose parish registers date from 3
July 1638.
Parish Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in the hamlet
of Santa Maria del Campo. Mentioned as early as the 13th century and
forming part of the seventeen parish communities under the jurisdiction
of the Rapallo parish church of Santo Stefano, it was elevated to the
title of provost in 1823. Inside the church, it was consecrated by the
bishop of the diocese of Chiavari, Monsignor Amedeo Casabona on 21 July
of 1935, among the many works on display, the relics of Saint Flavia
Flora are preserved. In the parish area there are the ruins of the 12th
century monastery of San Tomaso.
Oratory of Our Lady of the Rosary in
the hamlet of Santa Maria del Campo. Adjacent to the Campese parish
church, the oratory was rebuilt on a hillock in 1618, probably on the
foundations of a pre-existing 14th-century religious building originally
dedicated, according to some texts, to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.
Inside it preserves the document of Pope Clement VIII, dated 1604, which
approved the privileges of the local confraternity.
Church of San
Giovanni Battista in the hamlet of Santa Maria del Campo. Built between
1665 and 1688 at the behest of Giuseppe and Rolando Valle, the small
church was consecrated in 1697. The building is open to the public only
for the religious solemnity of Saint John the Baptist, on 24 June.
Chapel of Sant'Antonio in the locality of Case di Noè, dated 1502.
Church of San Rocco in the locality of Chignero, dating back to 1914.
Church of San Francesco Saverio in the locality of Gravero. The small
cult building, abandoned and in disuse, is located in the properties of
Villa Molfino, a complex located in the locality where the ancient
animal cemetery already stands along the provincial road to the
sanctuary of Our Lady of Montallegro. It was the priest Francesco Maria
Stronati who, in 1688, made a building request to the Curia of Genoa for
the construction of a chapel to be dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier.
Ancient castle by the sea
Among the best known castles of eastern
Liguria, the castle on the sea of Rapallo is striking for its
characteristics: a medium-sized fortress built close to the small
fishermen's beach, at the mouth of the San Francesco stream and the
Vittorio Veneto promenade.
Built by the population between 1550
and 1551 to defend themselves from frequent attacks by pirates (famous
is that of 4 July 1549 by the Turkish admiral Dragut), it is today the
site of events, exhibitions and cultural events promoted by the civic
administration or by private entities. Symbol par excellence of the
city, it has been declared a national monument.
Punta Pagana
Castle
Positioned at the farthest point of the bay of Prelo, in the
sestiere-fraction of San Michele di Pagana, on the administrative
borders with Santa Margherita Ligure, the fortification of Punta Pagana
was built by the Republic of Genoa in the first half of the 17th century
in protection of the coastal coastline and in order to avoid new pirate
attacks.
Inserted in the private park of the Villa Spinola above,
occasional residence of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, it is
clearly visible from the sea.
Castrum Rapallinum and castrum
Lasaniae
The first fortifications, necessary for greater control of
the municipal territory, which in more remote times extended well beyond
today's territorial area, were built near the low mountain peaks between
the Rapallo hinterland and the central Fontanabuona valley. An
archaeological investigation in the historic northern forest paths of
the city started between 1996 and 1997 by the local "Tigullia" section
of the International Institute of Ligurian Studies - and in
collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendence of Liguria -
allowed the discovery near the mountain Castle (665 m) of a first
fortification datable between the end of the XIII century and the
beginning of the XIV century; however, the identification of the site
and the discovery of the first fragment took place already in 1956 by
Mr. Renato Lagomarsino.
The area, called by the historians
castrum Rapallinum, was dominated by a wooden structure resting directly
on the rock. It was at the end of the fifteenth century, after an
initial abandonment, that the structure was completely rebuilt in stone
with two towers on the sides, thus having a maximum panoramic view
between the coast and the hinterland. The fortress maintained its
military and control use throughout the 15th century, until it was later
abandoned due to lack of use. Among the finds were found two game boards
in engraved stone slabs and a dozen bone dice used, as can be deduced,
by the castle's soldiers during their leisure time.
After the
exceptional discovery of the nearby castrum Rapallinum, during 1998 new
archaeological research was also started on the summit of Mount Pegge
(774 m) where, according to previous studies and surveys, a second
defensive position must have stood on the ridge: the so-called castrum
Lasaniae . The military fortress, presumably built in the same
historical period as the castle on the homonymous mountain, was built
with local stone materials and wood. The castle was later equipped with
new stone walls and equipped with weapons for the defense of the fort
such as some bombard balls and crossbow verrettone tips.
In ancient times, the village of Rapallo, in the heart of the
historic center and home to the most important craft businesses and city
authorities, was enclosed in the medieval period by a wall: access was
allowed only through five gates. Just a decree of the Senate of the
Republic of Genoa, dated February 12, 1629, decreed the then COMMVNI
RAPALLI as a "walled village".
More in-depth and modern studies,
including those of the historian Arturo Ferretto, have however
highlighted that in reality the Genoese senate described a medieval
Rapallo surrounded not by real walls, of which there are actually no
tangible traces, but consists of tall houses and from the narrow streets
- the typical "Ligurian alleyways" - which thanks to their urban
conformation ensured a sort of "walled citadel". Already in the
fifteenth century the humanist and chancellor of the Republic, Giacomo
Bracelli, described the village of Rapallo as follows:
«Village
without walls but very safe due to its narrow steps.»
(Giacomo
Bracelli)
To access the village you had to go through five gates:
the "Western Gate" or "Porta degli orti" - located near the Basilica of
Saints Gervasio and Protasio and today's pedestrian section of Corso
Goffredo Mameli - demolished in 1874; the "Porta Aquilonare" or "Porta
di Sant'Antonio" - located near the homonymous hospital, which later
became today's town hall - which was demolished in June 1702 on the
initiative of the hospital protectors; the "Porta di Pozzarello" or "del
Molinello" - located in the final part of via Venezia (the ancient
Rolecca, in the historic centre) with the embankment of the San
Francesco torrent - demolished according to a historical memory of the
knight Stefano Cuneo in 1810; the "Eastern Gate" or "of San Francesco" -
in the eastern part near the mouth of the stream of the same name -
demolished in 1821 to widen the road for Zoagli-Chiavari (Via Aurelia).
The only gate of the historic village that survived the demolitions
was the so-called "Porta delle Saline". It overlooked the Rapallo salt
pans (today the gardens of Piazza IV Novembre), the monopoly of the
Genoese Doria family, enclosing the access from today's Vittorio Veneto
promenade to the west. Over the centuries embellished in Baroque style
with the typical Genoese-style colors and with the pictorial
representation of the Byzantine picture donated, according to legend, by
the Madonna in the Marian apparition of 2 July 1557, it still today
divides the seafront from the historic center.
The control of the
village was also based over the centuries also with the use of the
numerous towers scattered along the hills in front of Rapallo. In the
Rapallo area, of the many erected in previous centuries for defensive
purposes or by local families, only a few are still visible today. We
can mention: the Fieschi tower, also known by the name "del Menegotto",
in the Laggiaro district; the Baratta (or dei Zerega) tower, near the
ridge between the Laggiaro district and the hamlet of San Pietro di
Novella; the Dondero tower, near the tollbooth and long road to the
locality of Savagna; the Morello tower, on the hill of San Michele di
Pagana, built in the second half of the 16th century together with the
underlying farmhouse by the noble Gregorio Morello (a plaque bears the
date 1590) where, in 1610, Brigida Morello (founder of the order of the
Ursuline Sisters of Mary Immaculate).
The largest and most important of the ancient towers of the city, the
Civic Tower is a structural work of 1473. According to historical
sources, its construction was commissioned by the noble citizens to
symbolize peace among the inhabitants of the village after a century
upset by infighting and power struggles between the major city factions
of the Middle Ages.
The first foundations of the future work were
decided on 3 January 1473 when the noble families of the city met in an
extraordinary "noble council" nominating four present - Francesco della
Torre, Benedetto Canevale, Antonio della Cella and Giovanni Bardi - to
impose on all the inhabitants, regardless of the faction or part to
which the contributor belonged, a special monetary tribute necessary for
the construction of the tower. The tower almost immediately took shape
alongside the ancient parish church of Santo Stefano so much so that,
erroneously, it is mistaken for its bell tower even though the religious
building has its own bell tower on its left.
After light repairs
in 1531 - where historical sources attest to an expense of 12 lire - it
was decided to add a pinnacle with a small marble terrace and a new bell
to the tower in 1581; the latter was replaced in 1640 at the expense of
the Borgo and the districts of Borzoli and Amandolesi. In 1692 Gio
Battista Canevaro re-proposed its restructuring with the movement of the
clock lower down, the replacement of the gears and a written provision
for more accurate maintenance in exchange for an annual fee of 40 lire.
During a storm in 1873, lightning struck the top of the tower,
destroying the marble terrace; having averted a possible collapse,
timely maintenance work was started. In the Second World War an alarm
siren was placed on the top, removed at the end of the conflict. In the
last decades of the 20th century, the unsafe tower was "caged" by
reinforcing scaffolding awaiting a providential recovery intervention. A
conservation and restoration work of the ancient "symbol of the free
Municipality of Rapallo" which, thanks to European, state and regional
funds, took place between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the
2000s. Cement injections at the base of the structure and other
interventions ensured the new opening of the site in 2002 and the return
of the tower to the Rapallo community.
The first certain information on the existence of this tower - also
known by the name "del Menegotto" from the name of the district of the
same name, located between the Laggiaro and Sant'Anna districts - are
mentioned in a deed of sale dated 26 May 1254 where the fellow citizen
Giacomo Boleto sold to the widow of Tedisio Fieschi, Simona, some lands
with a tower in a locality called in pastinis. Subsequently the land
passed to Ottobono Fieschi, the one who ascended the papal throne in
1276 with the name of Pope Adrian V, and who in 1269 rented it all to
Ada Barbieri and her son Tommasino.
After a new property from
1271, belonging to a certain Giacomo de Graverio, the tower and the
surrounding lands became a land possession of the noble Fieschi family
of Lavagna as attested by a subsequent document of 1451. It was in the
seventeenth century that it passed into the hands of the Cagnoni family
, assuming the new name of "torre de Cagnoni". In the following
centuries it was therefore the property of the Pessagnos, the Reboras
and the Zignagos at the beginning of the 20th century and it was the
latter who gave it the characteristic merlons still visible today like
the rest of the tower soaring among the surrounding houses.
It was the appearance of the first victims of leprosy in the
territories of the podesterias of Rapallo and Recco, in 1450, that
convinced the medieval community of Rapallo of the need for a temporary
shelter for the sick. The donation of a plot of land by a citizen of
Rapallo, Giacomo d'Aste, in the locality of Bana between the hamlets of
San Massimo and Santa Maria del Campo, gave the impetus for the
construction of the building. Dedicated to San Lazzaro di Betania, hence
the toponym "lazzaretto", the shelter is mentioned in a bull of Pope
Sixtus IV of 1471 in which the management of the building is entrusted
to the control of the protectors of the Pammatone Hospital in Genoa.
With the proliferation of the plague it had a real crowding of sick
people in 1475; among the people assisted also the son of the same donor
Giacomo d'Aste.
In 1505 the conditions of the building were
already dilapidated, so much so that it was necessary to prepare an
accurate restoration of the structure. The subsequent visit (1582) of
the apostolic visitor, Monsignor Francesco Bossi of the diocese of
Novara, highlighted and reported to the order of Pammatone the bad state
of the building, ordering him to carry out a new renovation, especially
for the external parts. Judged by the Genoese curators as too expensive,
the building did not undergo any conservation or restoration work. The
lazzeretto di Bana, privately owned, is in precarious structural
conditions, especially in the roofing and in the conservation of the
frescoes on the external façade. The fifteenth-century painting that
appears on the external wall of the building depicts the Madonna and
Child as well as the thaumaturgical saints Lazarus, James and Biagio.
In the municipal area there are several civil and public buildings of
historical and architectural value, especially in the heart of the
ancient medieval village with the presence, among other things, of
sixteenth and seventeenth-century slate portals. Among the houses and
palaces of the historic centre, the hub of local commerce and the city's
"living room", is the current town hall building, formerly an ancient
hospital shelter.
There is also a large number of residential and
historic villas, especially in the first hills of the area, built
between the 17th and 20th centuries for a stay in the town that has
become, with the advent of tourism, one of the prestigious locations in
eastern Liguria and Liguria . Among the most famous are Villa Tigullio
(seat of the municipal museum of bobbin lace and of the international
civic library), Villa Porticciolo, Villa Queirolo (seat of the general
secretariat of Panathlon International) and the Villa of the Treaty,
famous for the treaty which took place in 1920.
The Poor Clares theater-auditorium, housed in the former premises of the church of the Poor Clares monastic complex of 1633, then definitively abandoned in 1902, is the only city theater with a maximum capacity of 265 seats. The conversion of the former church spaces was decided in 1967 after the acquisition of the building by the civic administration. A new redesign of the interior was started in 1995.
The so-called "Hannibal's" bridge is a single arch construction which
was probably built for the first time in the medieval period. The origin
of the name is still unknown: in fact, the connection to the famous
Carthaginian leader Hannibal has no historical evidence or links with
the city.
The oldest document attesting to the presence of the
bridge is a deed dated 7 April 1049 in which a certain Rainaldo
confirmed the donation to the Genoese church of Santa Maria di Castello
of some lands around the bridge. A subsequent document, dated 15
September 1300, by the notary Corrado de Spignano, expressly mentions
the bridge over the river Boate (ad pontem de Bolago). Also from
historical sources we learn that it was rearranged in 1733 due to the
numerous floods that also affected it in past centuries.
With the
passage of Rapallo to the Kingdom of Sardinia, funds were allocated in
1823 for the diversion of the stream in the final stretch and near the
mouth. Thanks to this operation, the new carriage road for Santa
Margherita Ligure was built, an arterial road that still "runs" under
the bridge today.
The music kiosk, located on the Vittorio Veneto seafront near the
central outlet between the historic village and the coastal area,
inaugurated on November 3, 1929, recalls the Liberty style of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for its architecture. Wanted by
emigrants from Rapallo in Latin America (especially in the area of Chile
and Argentina) as a gift to the city of origin to host band concerts,
the project was created by Luigi Devoto who created a pavilion of 10 m
in diameter and 9 m tall and with 12 columns supporting the dome.
The major Italian and foreign composers of history are depicted
inside the dome, painted by the local painter Giovanni Grifo: among the
depictions of the stalls we recognize Giuseppe Verdi, Gioachino Rossini,
Vincenzo Bellini, Arrigo Boito, Ludwig van Beethoven, Daniel Auber,
Giacomo Meyerbeer, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Hector Berlioz and Christoph Willibald Gluck; the medallions of
the arches instead depict Johann Sebastian Bach, Gaspare Spontini,
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Domenico Cimarosa, Georges Bizet, Amilcare
Ponchielli, Charles Gounod, Gaetano Donizetti, Claudio Monteverdi, Georg
Friedrich Händel, Franz Joseph Haydn and Giacomo Puccini.
Between
the end of 2009 and the spring of 2011, recovery interventions were
started on the structure (renovation of the roof, pictorial decorations,
railings and balustrades) and on the entire square - dedicated to the
Martyrs of the Liberation - with complete pedestrianization of the same
with the resurfacing of the flooring. Precisely in this last phase of
the works, the excavations, carried out to lay the foundations of the
new square, have allowed the discovery, in the area between the kiosk
and the "Casa Garibaldi", of an ancient wharf-dock (called "molo del
Binello") of the eighteenth century.
The monument to Christopher Columbus, inaugurated on May 21, 1914
adjacent to the public port, was strongly desired by the emigrants from
Rapallo in the Americas. The work, fruit of the mastery of the
Italian-Argentine sculptor Arturo Dresco, was financed entirely by the
emigrants in memory of their native country. A local note asserts that
the finger of the Genoese navigator, stretched out towards the sea,
indicates precisely the American continent.
19th century gazebo
The nineteenth-century gazebo is located in the heart of the historic
centre, in Piazza Venezia, home to the daily fruit and vegetable market.
Used in the past as a place to purchase the fish market, after a radical
recovery, in particular of the roof and the iron parts, it is now chosen
as a venue for cultural events, exhibitions or other.
Architectural testimony of the war period of the Second World War is
the so-called "wall of the partisans" - or simply "the wall" - sadly
known to the people of Rapallo for the atrocities committed in front of
this stretch of anti-landing wall that divided the Langano port area
from the rest of the city. On the sides of the same there is also a
memorial to the fallen, consisting of a travertine stele with
bas-reliefs depicting the episode of the shooting - the work of the
sculptor Nicola Neonato - and bronze plaques where the twenty names of
the partisans are listed, not only of Rapallo, who were shot leaving to
posterity the memory of the Resistance in the holes in the concrete.
Towards the city seafront, near the "delle saline" area, another war
memorial is the work of the sculptor and painter Nicola Neonato who
created it in 1977.
Reachable from the path to the sanctuary of
the Madonna di Caravaggio, near the hamlet of Santa Maria del Campo, the
monumental cross of Spotà was built in 1935 on the top of the hill of
Spotà as a monument to the fallen of the First World War. 15 meters high
and in reinforced concrete, designed by Filippo Rovelli, it was solemnly
inaugurated on the morning of May 30, 1935. The Spotà cross is visible
from different areas of the city.
Also interesting is the
non-Catholic section of the municipal urban cemetery (entrance on the
west side of via Cerisola) with old tombstones mostly concerning foreign
residents, who made Rapallo an elite tourist center in the late
nineteenth century and until the outbreak of the Second World War . Ezra
Pound's father, Homer Pound, is also buried in this section of the
cemetery.
Patronal festivities of 1-2-3 July. They take place in the first
three days of July on the anniversary of the apparition of the Madonna
of Montallegro (which took place on 2 July 1557). Solemn religious
celebrations take place there, including the traditional evening
procession on 3 July with the presence of the processional Christs and
the silver ark of the Madonna, followed by fireworks displays and the
ritual use of the ancient Ligurian mortars, of which there is news in
starting from 1619.
The "National Literary Prize for Women Writers",
established in 1984, is a literary competition reserved for women
writers which takes place in June in the park of Villa Tigullio.
Maritime Palio of Tigullio. The coastal towns of Santa Margherita
Ligure, San Michele di Pagana, Rapallo, Zoagli, Chiavari, Lavagna and
Sestri Levante compete every year, between May and August, in a series
of rowing competitions on traditional Ligurian goiters in the waters of
the Gulf of Tigullio . The first edition started in 1974.
"Palco sul
mare Festival" is one of the biggest events in the city in the summer.
Every year Italian singers, but also actors and television comedians
take turns performing for the summer audience. Originally the event took
place only in the city of Rapallo (on a stage on the sea supported by
floating buoys), but after the active participation of the then Province
of Genoa it is now "exported" to the other towns of Tigullio and Golfo
Paradiso with altering calendars and exhibitions from city to city.
"Borgo d'autore" takes place in August and is an opportunity to learn
more about culture, thanks to the many cultural and artistic
interventions.
"Festival Internazionale del Balletto", always in the
month of August, is dedicated to academic dance. There are many foreign
presences.
"Milan-Rapallo cycling race" in June.
"International
Cartoonist Exhibition", in October, is an exhibition dedicated to the
world of comics (with themes and subjects that vary according to the
editions); some editions were held inside the rooms of the castle on the
sea.
"Mare Nostrum", held in the halls of the castle between October
and November, is an event traditionally dedicated to naval modeling, as
well as to the art and history of maritime traditions.
By plane
Genoa airport.
By car
A12 motorway: Rapallo
exit.
On boat
Port of Rapallo. Tourist boats of the Tigullio
Maritime Services Consortium connect Rapallo with Santa Margherita
Ligure and Portofino.
On the train
Rapallo station. Located on
the Genoa-Pisa railway line, 32 km from the center of Genoa.
By
bus
Service performed by ATP Exercise.
Cable car
A cable
car that connects Rapallo to the sanctuary of Nostra Signora di
Montallegro.
Valley station, Piazzale Silvio Solari, ☎ +39
018552341, +39 0185239017. return ticket €8 (May 2021). Mon-Sun
09:30-12:30 and 14:30-18:00.
Top station. Located next to the
Sanctuary at an altitude of 600 m.
By public transport
Service performed by ATP Exercise.
Average prices
U Giancu restaurant, Via San Massimo.
Tre Ulivi
Restaurant, Via S. Tomaso.
The restaurant, Via Montebello 11.
High prices
Lord Byron restaurant.
Eden ROC restaurant.
Average prices
Hotel Italy and Lido.
High prices
Hotel
Tigullio Royal, Piazza IV Novembre, 3. modification
Europe hotel.
Rapallo is located in the western part of the Gulf
of Tigullio, nestled in the gulf that takes its name (historically
called "Golfo del Grifo"), between the plain of the two torrents
Boate - historically called "Bogo" - and San Francesco, the latter
located in the eastern part of the city. The municipal territory is
also crossed by numerous waterways and minor canals (among the main
ones the San Pietro, the Santa Maria, the Sellano, the Cereghetta,
the Carcara) where, over the centuries, residential units
corresponding to the today's hamlets and localities of Rapallo.
Reachable by special paths, there are among the main peaks of
the territory the Manico del Lume (801 m, the highest point of
Rapallo and the geographical area of western Tigullio-Golfo
Paradiso), Mount Pegge (774 m, where it is located the Margherita
refuge), Mount Lasagna (728 m), Mount Bello (713 m), Mount Rosa (692
m), Mount Orsena or Caravaggio (615 m, seat of the homonymous Marian
sanctuary), Mount Ampola ( 580 m) and Mount delle Pozze (528 m). At
612 m above sea level there is the sanctuary of Our Lady of
Montallegro at Mount Letho.
Other mountains and hilly areas
in the Rapallo area, from the eastern to the western borders of the
municipal territory, are: Mount Zuccarello (617 m and therefore
towards the Costa di Lamborno, south-west), Mount Castello (665 m),
Mount Perini (689 m), Mount Crocetta (638 m), Punta di Grondone (710
m), Mount Fascia (712 m), Mount Borgo (732 m), Mount Esoli (442 m),
Mount Ruta (417 m on the border with the homonymous locality in
Camogli), the Sella di Ramezzana (351 m).
The "ridge 1",
which originates from Mount Pegge (formerly Mount Lasagna), to the
south, divides the valley of the San Francesco stream (area east of
the city) from the valley of the Boate di San Pietro stream; Mount
Carmo (628 m), the San Quirico pass or Poggio dei Merli (539 m), the
Punta di Serrato (560 m), the Collette pass (500 m) and the Monte
delle Pozze or Poggio are part of the ridge (528 m). The "ridge 2"
instead originates from Mount Orsena or di Caravaggio, towards
south-east, and divides the valley of the Foggia stream (fraction of
Sant'Andrea di Foggia) and of the San Pietro stream from the valley
of the Boate di Santa Maria stream; the Costa di Benna (600–620 m),
the Passo della Croce (420 m) and the related Croce di Spotà (414 m)
on Mount Orsena are part of the ridge.
The territory is also
dotted with numerous passes and passes, along the two main ridges,
which allow the mountain passage in the neighboring towns of the
hinterland. The main passes are: Fondeghin (450 m), Besain (620 m,
which allows you to reach Chiavari), Bosco Panalo (625 m), Canevale
(620 m), Coreglia (for Coreglia Ligure at 635 m) , della Crocetta
(599 m for Dezerega and Coreglia Ligure), Lasagna, Pian di Masone
(675 m), Giasea (715 m), della Serra (641 m), del Gallo (485 m), the
plains of Caravaggio or of Monte Ampola (498 m), of Pegoe Vegie (475
m), of the Via Romana di Ruta (at 281 m near the millenary church of
Ruta).
The extension of the city develops above all in its
immediate hinterland, dominated by mainly flat and hilly areas, due
to the large and disorderly urban development that affected the town
in the immediate post-war period, creating a real homogeneous
peripheral expansion towards those areas in the past far from the
historic center. The rapid evolution of this phenomenon, common and,
only in some ways, comparable to other towns of the Ligurian and
Italian Riviera, took the known and certainly not estimative name of
rapallization.
The morphology of the coastal territory, in
some indented areas, does not allow the development of sandy beaches,
more typical of the eastern area of Tigullio, therefore having to
resort to the construction of private bathing establishments on equipped
wooden piers for the seasonal summer activity. However, there are small
free beaches in the Lido area (between the mouth of the Boate stream and
the Vittorio Veneto seafront), at the sixteenth-century castle on the
sea, in the historic district of Avenaggi (Ê Nagge) and in the Prelo bay
in San Michele di Pagana.
The climate is mild, given the geographical position between the Ligurian Sea and the Ligurian Apennines.
To date, there is still no certain and documented version of the
origin or meaning of the toponym Rapallo.
Among the best known
versions, the derivation from the term Rapalu or, more correctly, Ra
palù which can be translated into swamp is hypothesized and this
derivation would be close to the primitive geological concept of the
swamp which, effectively, was located at the mouth of the Boate stream
and where the first village settlement. According to the affirmations of
the Ligurian historian Gaetano Poggi, the toponym derives instead from
Rapa-lo with reference to the cultivation of turnips, which would have
had great development in the Levantine locality.
Yet another
version, supported by the linguist Giulia Petracco Sicardi, would tend
towards the Gothic term Rappa, passed into Italian dialects with the
meaning of fold, wrinkle, or fissure and which would take up the actual
morphology of the Rapallo area.
The first settlement seems to date back to 700 BC. following the
discovery, in 1911, of an ancient tomb in the current district of
Sant'Anna during a clay extraction excavation to supply the nearby
furnaces. During the excavations various sacred objects were brought to
light, including a terracotta cinerary urn with a gammata cross,
containing an iron spear cusp, vases and a gold bracelet in the shape of
a snake. From the first studies carried out on the finds, it was
possible to establish the Etruscan, if not Greek, origin of the finds.
Despite the exceptional discovery, the material was subsequently lost
(thus leaving uncertainty about the early origins of the village) and
therefore not being able to compare it with the prehistoric finds,
discovered in the sixties of the same century, from the necropolis of
nearby Chiavari.
In 643 King Rotari, ruler of the Lombards, after
having conquered the lands of Liguria, created a military detachment (or
defensive post) between Zoagli and Rapallo against the Byzantine rivals;
the toponym Marina di Bardi, a locality in the municipality of Zoagli,
dates back to this historical episode. It was under the dominion of the
archbishops of Milan, who fled to Liguria due to the Lombard invasion:
the Ambrosian parish church of Santo Stefano in the historic center of
Rapallo is considered one of the oldest parish churches in Liguria
together with the Ambrosian places of worship, from the same period,
present in Uscio, Pieve Ligure and Recco in the Golfo Paradiso.
In 774 with the deposition of the sovereign Desiderio, following the
defeats against the Franks in Susa and Pavia, the Lombard kingdom
essentially ended. Charlemagne, already king of the Franks, assumed the
title of "king of the Franks and of the Lombards" (Rex Francorum et
Langobardorum) and, in the 800s, that of "emperor augustus".
Following the changed political framework, within the Provincia Maritima
Italorum (an administrative subdivision dating back to the Byzantine
domain, roughly corresponding to the current Liguria), the county of
Genoa was established by the Franks, which, among its territories, was
also annexed the village of Rapallo.
In 964 the name of the
village of Rapallo appears for the first time in a notarial deed in
which the sale of land is mentioned. However, a document from 1070
attests to an attack by sea by the Pisans for political revenge against
their historic rival Genoa, an event that also occurred in 1076 and
again in 1079.
In two different deeds of 16 and 18 February 1171
the consuls of Rapallo are mentioned for the first time (Ugo di
Amandolesi, Rolando di Corrado and Giovanni di Pescino) making
historians assume the by now constitution of Rapallo as a free
municipality (Commvni Rapalli, term also taken up in the municipal coat
of arms), under the protection of Genoa to which the Rapallesi donated
two galleys to counter the power of the Pisan naval fleet. From some
geographical maps and historical sources of the early Middle Ages we
learn the geopolitical formation of the original municipal territory:
much larger than the current one and constituted, in addition to the
village of Rapallo, also by the localities of Santa Margherita Ligure
and Portofino.
In 1203, with the division of the domains of the Republic of Genoa
into podesterias, the podesteria of Rapallo was established, including
the main villages of Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure, Cicagna and
Lavagna; the inclusion of the latter in the jurisdictional territory of
Rapallo created, however, a contrast with the Fieschi family, Lavagnese
counts, so much so that before 1222 the Tigullio was further divided
into the two podesterias of Rapallo-Cicagna and Chiavari-Lavagna. The
act of oath of the inhabitants of Rapallo, in the De Fornari palace in
Genoa, of absolute loyalty and complete dedication to the Genoese
republic is attested to on 17 March 1229; the latter, grateful, in the
future will ensure total defensive protection for the village.
On
6 August 1284 also the Rapallo galleys, with fifty men from Rapallo (and
50 units from today's Santa Margherita), joined the victorious Genoese
naval fleet against the navy of Pisa in the battle of Meloria in the
Tyrrhenian Sea despite, in the same year , the occurrence of a
devastating looting and siege of as many as seventy-two ships of the
Republic of Venice captained by Alberto Morosini, nephew of the Doge of
Venice Giovanni Dandolo and podestà of Pisa. It underwent a new naval
attack in 1320 by Castruccio Castracani, lord of Lucca, but was promptly
put down by the soldiers of Florence, the latter allies of the Genoese.
In 1450 the historical chronicles refer to the presence of leprosy
in the village which led to the death of thousands of victims: it was in
this historical phase that a temporary shelter was built for the sick
outside the historical nucleus, in today's locality of Bana (along the
historical road road to Camogli): the hospital.
On 5 September
1494 the city was reached by the Aragonese naval fleet which landed with
4,000 soldiers to raise the population of Rapallo against a Genoa
dedicated to the Sforza lordship. Three days later (September 8) about
2,500 Swiss soldiers arrived in the city in the pay of the French king
Charles VIII who started an armed clash against the Aragonese at the
bridge over the salt pans: between general violence and looting, we
witnessed the killing of fifty patients admitted to the hospital of
Sant'Antonio (current seat of the town hall) by the Swiss.
On 2
May 1495 a Genoese naval squadron under the command of Francesco Spinola
attacked a French squadron in the port of Rapallo, captured all the
French ships and liberated the city. The French commander, Sire de
Miolans, was also captured.
On July 4, 1549 Rapallo was raided
for wealth and young women by the pirates of the Turkish Dragut.
On 2 July 1557, a Marian apparition of the Virgin Mary to the farmer
Giovanni Chichizola (native of Canevale, near Coreglia Ligure)
positively "distorted" the small Rapallo community, which later built on
the hill of the event - Mount Letho - a Marian sanctuary still today a
destination for pilgrimages.
Between the years 1579 and 1580 the
nightmare of the plague penetrated Liguria causing, according to a
historical estimate, about 100,000 deaths throughout the region. In
Rapallo the chronicles of the time recorded only two suspected cases and
this event was interpreted by religious and popular devotion as an
alleged miracle of the Madonna of Montallegro.
With the increase
of the population, and of the historical and strategic importance, with
an act of the Senate of Genoa of 6 May 1608 the podesteria of Rapallo,
until then included in the large capitaneato of Chiavari, was also
elevated to the title of capitaneato . Its competent jurisdiction was
considerably extended, in addition to the "Borgo" (the historic center
enclosed by the walls), to the other historic "districts" of the
municipality of Rapallo: "Olivastro" (northern area a of the territory
including all the localities of the Rapallo hinterland ), "Pescino"
(south-west area including the current municipalities of Santa
Margherita Ligure and hamlets, and Portofino), "Borzoli" (south-east
area including also the village of Zoagli), "Oltremonte" (north- east
including today's municipalities in the middle Val Fontanabuona such as
Cicagna, Coreglia Ligure, Favale di Malvaro, Lumarzo, Moconesi, Orero).
On 4 July 1657, simultaneously with the first centenary of the
apparition, a new plague in Genoa and Tigullio led the then captain of
Rapallo to the decision to suspend all commercial and social exchanges
with Recco, Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure, Chiavari and the
Ligurian capital itself. The city, effectively armored and isolated,
emerged unscathed from the contagion and to celebrate this event, once
again considered "miraculous" by the people of Rapallo, the first
patronal festivals were celebrated in honor of the Madonna, with the
explosion of Ligurian firecrackers and donating Virgin a silver blade
depicting the Borgo as a sign of gratitude.
It was towards dawn on 4 July 1549 that the small naval fleet of the
admiral and corsair of the Ottoman Empire Torghud - known in the
Ligurian territory as the "pirate Dragut" - entered the Gulf of Rapallo,
besieging the city in three points different. The landing succeeded in
full: it was not in fact possible to organize an immediate and opposed
defense and the confusion was such that the first news that reached
Genoa spoke of an attack on the village of Santa Margherita Ligure.
Historical sources narrate to posterity the cruelty of the events
that affected the streets and houses of the old village: from the damage
and thefts in the houses, to the taking of objects and sacred
furnishings in the city churches. In the pirate siege about a hundred
inhabitants, including young women, were enslaved and there were no
shortage of wounded and victims; the same provost of the parish church
of Santo Stefano died there. In the written accounts, among the
chronicles of the event, the heroic gesture of the young fellow citizen
Bartolomeo Maggiocco is also mentioned who, facing some pirates with
weapons, managed to save his companion Giulia Giudice; a street in the
city is named after him.
Due to the confusion and scant news, an
armed intervention from Genoa arrived very late, leaving the village of
Rapallo almost at the mercy of the pirates. Immediate help did not
arrive, among other things, not even from the nearby villages and
hamlets: on the other hand, as the historical chronicles of the event
attest, instead there was a looting of the remains after the departure
of the Ottoman fleet.
To avert new assaults and attacks it was
the Genoese captain Gregorio Roisecco, subsequently sent by the Senate
of the Republic of Genoa to evaluate the situation of the village, who
proposed to the Rapallesi the construction of a defensive position to
protect the city, a work which took place shortly thereafter with the
building of the castle on the Rapallo seafront. The story of the Dragut
landing has been taken up, today, in an adventure book for children and
in the texts of the pupils of a Genoese middle school.
The events that affected Genoa in the War of the Austrian Succession,
between 1746 and 1747, indirectly caused the establishment of a local
Austrian occupation garrison in Rapallo as well. On 2 July 1747, after
the famous revolt of the Genoese led by the young Balilla against the
Austrian invaders, the community of Genoa, to honor this event
corresponding to the 190th anniversary of the apparition in Montallegro,
donated a silver foil still preserved inside of the sanctuary. Until
1797 the city and its captaincy still followed the historical fate of
the Republic of Genoa.
With the French domination of Napoleon
Bonaparte, from 2 December 1797 it returned to the department of the
Gulf of Tigullio, which had Rapallo as its capital, within the Ligurian
Republic. From 28 April 1798 with the new French regulations, the
territory of Rapallo returned to the 1st canton, still as capital, of
the jurisdiction of Tigullio. With the new French regulations, religious
orders and institutes suffered suppressions and, in some cases, the
"stripping" of their works of art and precious furnishings from places
of worship and the conversion of buildings to other uses.
1798
was also an important year for the Rapallo area because from that date
the foundations were laid for the imminent separation and independence
of the villages of Santa Margherita, San Giacomo di Corte, San Siro, San
Lorenzo della Costa and Nozarego (which until at that time they were
integral parts of the Rapallo area and included in the historic western
district of Pescino). The small municipalities, later, will form the
municipality of Santa Margherita di Rapallo (1818) and the current
municipality of Santa Margherita Ligure which assumed this denomination
in 1863 with a royal decree.
In 1799 the city became the scene of
clashes between the French and Austrian armies. On 12 September of the
same year an extraordinary Austrian commissariat was established, but
already on 15 October, after a long resistance, they returned to a
pro-imperial French management of Bonaparte.
However, the
Austrians attempted a new and victorious enterprise and on 15 November,
after an intense battle on the Ruta (fraction of Camogli), they managed
to restore the commissariat of two months earlier. The passage
established, among other things, a heavy monetary fine against the
considered "traitors" of Rapalle, believed to be close to the French. In
four hours, a total of 6,000 lire was raised.
In 1800, in
February, a local Austrian government was established and Rapallo,
chosen as the seat of the Provisional Royal Regency, was forced to obey
every order by handing over everything that bound it (above all arms and
ammunition) to the Napoleonic empire. The local Austrian regency was
rather brief since, from 14 June, with a new defeat inflicted by
Napoleon's troops, Genoa and the former Ligurian Republic were
definitively annexed to the First French Empire. In 1803 Rapallo was
still the main seat of the II canton of the Gulf of Tigullio, in the
jurisdiction of Entella with Chiavari as the capital.
In 1805 the municipal territory of Rapallo also merged within the
borders of the Napoleonic empire and subjected to the jurisdiction of
the department of the Apennines, wanted by Napoleon with its capital in
Chiavari, officially adopting the French franc as its currency and the
French language in writings and reports .
On 13 July 1806 Rapallo
welcomed Pope Pius VII as a guest in the villa of the Marquises Serra
(now Villa Tigullio, seat of the civic library and the museum of lace
and bobbin lace).
It then followed the fortunes of the French
empire until 11 April 1814 when the British entered the city forming a
new British provisional government. Resources, if only for a short time,
an independent Genoese Republic, but under the control of the royal
house of Savoy. In 1815 the territory was included in the Kingdom of
Sardinia, according to the decisions of the Congress of Vienna of 1814,
which subjected the municipality of Rapallo in the province of Chiavari
under the division of Genoa. King Vittorio Emanuele I of Savoy was a
guest of the Marquises Serra, at the villa of the same name, in June
1821.
In this historical period, in 1823, thanks to the interest
of the Genoese duchy and the Savoyard kingdom, one of the first and
fundamental urban planning works of Rapallo was started, such as the
deviation of the Boate stream in its final stretch and near the mouth
which brought - over time - to modify, expand and build new roads,
housing units and the new city port; the latter was declared on 13
August 1839 of IV class by King Carlo Alberto of Savoy, to whom it was
named in 1840.
In the same years, particularly between 1835 and
1836, the town fell victim to cholera and among the many episodes that
characterized this epidemic phase, even the convocation of a special
municipal council is reported in the archives, meeting on 22 August 1835
where, solemnly , the protection of the city was invoked to the patron
saint Madonna di Montallegro.
During the phases of the Italian
Risorgimento and the unification of Italy, the Rapallo community also
followed the war events carefully; Giuseppe Garibaldi himself was
secretly hosted on the night of September 6, 1849 at an inn at the mouth
of the San Francesco torrent and there were three people from Rapallo -
Bartolomeo Canessa, Lorenzo Pellerano and Giovanni Pendola - who
voluntarily joined the expedition of the Thousand in Sicily by embarking
in Quarto .
With the newly established Kingdom of Italy, the town
of Rapallo was the seat of the 5th district of the same name in the
district of Chiavari in the then province of Genoa to which western
Tigullio (Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino) and Zoagli were
subjected.
Among the various factors that gave birth to a new "economic
renaissance" of Rapallo was the arrival of the railway line from Genoa
to Sestri Levante, with the inauguration of the local station, and the
passage of the first train from the small station of San Michele di
Pagana, on 31 October 1868. The new via ferrata, which was added to the
already existing road connections from both east and west, the
modernization and advancement of the primary services, and the
particularly mild climate of the Ligurian Riviera, were the impulses of
the nascent tourist activity of Rapallo in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
Shortly thereafter, the first hotels and
luxury hotels, cafes and restaurants, cinemas and dance halls, bathing
establishments in the summer season opened, as well as the construction
of new stately and residential villas in Liberty and neoclassical style.
The increase in tourist and holiday tourism, especially with a good
foreign presence of English, French and Germans, also led to hosting,
from 1902 to 1927, one of the first Italian casinos in the halls of the
Kursaal Hotel.
Among the illustrious personalities who visited
and stayed in Rapallo were Franz Liszt, the writer Guy de Maupassant,
the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (who in Rapallo, in January 1883,
composed the first part of the work Thus spoke Zarathustra), the
composer Jean Sibelius (1901), the painter Kandinsky (1905), princess
Louise of Habsburg-Tuscany and her husband Enrico Toselli (1909), the
president of the United States of America Theodore Roosevelt (1910),
prince Augustus William son of William II of Germany (26 March 1910),
Lord Carnarvon, the last king of Lithuania Mindaugas II who died in
Rapallo in 1928, the actress Eleonora Duse, the writer Sem Benelli, Ezra
Pound, Ernest Hemingway (who will mention his stay in Rapallo in short
story Cat In The Rain), King Hussein of Jordan, Empress Soraya of Persia
and, in more recent years, the philosopher Luigi Pareyson.
With Italy's entry into the war on 24 May 1915, many young people
from Rapallo were enlisted to fight on the front and in the Alpine
trenches. Four months later, in the night between 24 and 25 September,
the city was affected by a violent flood caused by the overflowing of
the local river Boate: the historic center was flooded with water, mud
and debris. In the afternoon of the 25th, an area adjacent to the
railway collapsed due to torrential rain, creating a mass of mud 4
meters high which overwhelmed the areas close to the railway fence. The
city was in fact isolated with the only possible connections by train,
but coming only from the eastern Ligurian. It took a few weeks of
intense work to calm down and restore the connections. In the meantime,
the first news of the people of Rapallo who fell in battle arrived from
the front, a war situation that led the city to organize rescue centers
also for the many wounded.
On 6-7 November 1917 the city was the
seat of the conference of the same name between the Kingdom of Italy,
France and the United Kingdom.
From 1918 it was the headquarters
of the 268th Squadron which remained until April 1919.
On 7
November 1920 it hosted the first treaty of Rapallo where the Italian
State and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia signed the new borders in the
Balkans in the halls of the Spinola villa (today known as the "treaty
villa").
On April 16, 1922, however, the Soviet Union and Weimar
Germany met in the Ligurian town for the second treaty to mutually
renounce the war damages.
The detachment of a part of the
territory and its unification in the municipal territory of Santa
Margherita Ligure dates back to 1928.
During the Second World War the city was occupied by Italian and
German military garrisons, setting up small parking camps in various
areas of the city, but initiating a fairly peaceful and collaborative
coexistence between the military and the population.
In the first
days of July 1944, around 8.30 in the morning, a formation of Allied
bombers subjected the city to a carpet bombing, even though in fact
there were no military objectives. More than half of the bombs ended up
in the sea and more than half of those that landed did not explode.
However, the orphanage, the hospice, the civil hospital (which bore a
huge "red cross" painted on the roof) and a part of the city center were
hit, causing the death of forty-one people (including children, nuns,
the elderly, sick people and a priest). The basilica of Saints Gervasius
and Protasius itself underwent the demolition of the east wing of the
structure. In addition, every night a light bomber passed and repassed
over the city dropping one or two bombs a night and at random, with the
aim of disturbing the civilian population. Unlike other Ligurian towns,
such as the nearby centers of Zoagli and Recco, the city did not have
significant "war wounds" due to the substantial absence of a strong
German presence and the lack of important infrastructures such as
railway bridges, present precisely in the above cited towns.
After the end of the conflict, the Italian economic miracle of the
fifties and sixties also involved the Rapallo community, like the rest
of Italy. A decisive turning point was also linked to the opening to
vehicular traffic of the A12 Genoa-Livorno motorway and of a toll booth
from 1965 on the section towards Genoa and from June 1968 towards
eastern Liguria. In those decades the city was affected by a rapid, and
often uncontrolled, residential development with the construction of new
houses and buildings destined, in the majority of cases, to the "new and
modern holiday residence": areas that were almost primitive or
previously exploited in different uses (especially agricultural) were in
a short time "replaced" by new housing settlements. The expansion of the
Sant'Anna district (becoming, in fact, a continuation towards the north
of the town of Rapallo beyond the railway belt) and of the historic area
of Fossato di Monti (area downstream of the San Francesco), and the
creation of new residential districts in various city areas (Milan,
Costaguta, Laggiaro district, tourist port area, hill behind the former
Clarisse monastery) and fractional areas in Santa Maria del Campo, San
Pietro di Novella and San Michele of Pagan. A development which was not
followed, however, by a parallel adaptation or expansion of the urban
road network (especially in those more "inland" neighborhoods), except
for the creation or opening of new driveways which have however been
placed against the main roads to and from the center and highway. Even
the historic center area, in fact semi-unaltered over the centuries,
with the characteristic houses and buildings decorated in the Genoese
pictorial style, was "touched" and "touched" by post-war modern
development with the construction of a skyscraper (headquarters of
offices, studios, apartments and commercial premises) in the area
adjacent to the basilica of Saints Gervasio and Protasio in the central
Piazza Cavour; this construction, towering among the houses of the
historic centre, together with the leaning bell tower of the basilica
and the civic tower, is now part of the urban panorama of Rapallo by
sea.
In the same years, the new pedestrian layout of the Vittorio
Veneto promenade (the so-called and characteristic "red promenade") and
of the uncovered stretch between the mouth of the San Francesco torrent
and the sixteenth-century castle on the sea were built, thus leading to
a reinterpretation that up to the the beginning of the twentieth century
was almost unchanged over the centuries. On the opposite side, in the
area to the west of the city, the international tourist port (named
after Carlo Riva) was built and completed in the 1970s, the first of its
kind in Italy, which was added to the already existing public port of
Langano.
A phenomenon and a "specific case" of a post-war Rapallo
which took the name of "rapallization", and this urban development soon
underwent the interest and intervention of some of the most famous
journalists, intellectuals and urban planners of the time, including
these were Indro Montanelli, who reported to the media and the press the
situation that was developing in the Ligurian town.
It should
also be noted that the development led parallel to a rapid growth of the
resident population. According to the ISTAT data recorded in the 1951
census, Rapallo appeared to have a "post-war" population slightly higher
than 15,500 inhabitants and the same census carried out thirty years
later, in 1981 when the values began to settle down, the registered
population already exceeded 29,500 inhabitants, an increase of 90%. A
figure on the resident population, almost always growing with each
survey, unlike the other municipalities in the Tigullio district where,
albeit slightly, there is a demographic decline, which in the summer or
in any case during the holiday period undergoes a conspicuous increase
of over 50% as also happens in other coastal tourist centers of Liguria.
Among the phenomena and atmospheric events that have affected the
town in recent years, the flood of 3-4-5 October 1995 and again the
violent storm of 29-30 October 2018.
Traditionally, there are two
different ways of indicating the inhabitants of the city: the Rapallini
(rapallin in the Genoese dialect), those who are natives of Rapallo and
the Rapallese those who simply reside in the Ligurian city; the
dialectal term ruentini, better known in the Tigullio and Genoese areas,
can instead be connected almost exclusively to the historic and local
football club.