Altitude: 135 m a.s.l.
Area: 6 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 9.5 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 1787 - in 2017: 2221
Patron Saint Day: December 6th - San Nicola di Bari
Information: Municipality phone 0183 40771
Diano Castello was founded around the year 1000 to offer a safer defense from barbarian incursions to the inhabitants of the coast and was a fief of the Marquis of Clavesana who recognized it as a free Commune in 1171.
The village then constituted, together with Diano Marina and numerous other towns of the valley, the "Communitas Diani" which from 1195 passed under the control of Genoa.
In 1204 Genoa imposed the return of sheep and cheese to the inhabitants of Diano by some farmers of the valleys surrounding the town, while, sixteen years later, the emperor Frederick II ordered the Genoese authorities to stop the raids in the territory.
The history of Diano Castello is rich also thanks to the documents collected by the historian Bianchi.
Visit of the town
Arriving to the beginning of the village, in front of the great medieval loggia, take the narrow street under the vault to the left of the loggia and go down to park in the square on whose western side is the little house with a black stone architrave carved with an elaborate "Annunciation".
Walk again under the vault recently frescoed with heraldic crests and go left under the Municipal Loggia, where you can see the plan of the eighteenth-century village drawn by Vinzoni, the coats of arms of the Municipalities with the date of their adhesion to the Communitas Diani, and two marble plaques of 1336 with the text surmounted by the winged griffin, the medieval symbol of the "Communitas"; over there is the Tourist Office, on whose façade are affixed small capitals while the window is decorated with two small marble columns.
Leaving the loggia on the left, go up Via Meloria flanking the facade of the fifteenth century Quaglia palace, now the municipal seat, decorated by the fresco given by the Republic of Genoa to Diano Castello as a sign of gratitude for the heroism demonstrated in the battle of Meloria (1284), the decisive naval battle in which the “Superb” Genoa crushed forever the rival Maritime Republic of Pisa.
The fresco reproduces the two opposed fleets deployed and bears the inscription: "Pisarum classis nostra victoria laeta Diani cuius causa fuere viri" which recalls how the men of Diano were the cause of the glorious victory of the Genoese fleet over the Pisan one.
The south side of the building incorporates the crenellated quadrangular tower, that has been much altered, which defended the access to the village and was also its prison.
On the paved Via Meloria rises, immediately after, another eighteenth-century palace with stone seats along the façade, but you’ll leave the road and go up the ramp to the left reaching the churchyard of the Baroque church of San Nicolò da Bari of 1717 to which the earthquake of 1887 cut off the bell tower; high on the facade stands a sundial.
The single nave interior preserves above the main altar a crucifix of 1719 by Anton Maria Maragliano (1664-1739); the seats of the choir, in carved wood, date back to 1749, the period to which date back even the other statues and paintings preserved there.
Leaving the church, take the left going up the alley until you reach the cobbled Piazza Clavesana, on the south side of which you can see the remains, dating back to the first centuries after the year 1000, of the ancient residence of the marquises of the same name, Lords of the town.
Affixed on the wall between two prominent lion heads is a monolith carved with the scene of the baptism of Christ between two abraded coats of arms; on the small terrace decorated with hanging arches has been preserved the ancient well, that takes its water from the cistern below fed by the gutter.
Past at number 11 the door surmounted by a carved stone tondo with the figure of Christ, reach the small widening on which protrudes the apse pierced by two single-lancet windows of the Romanesque church of Assunta built around the 12th century in cut stones, decorated in the attic with hanging arches with the corbels carved into guardian wizards.
On the wall to the left of the apse there are two doors and two splayed single-light windows, all with a Romanesque arch; on the opposite side there was the other side door (now replaced by a stained glass window that allows you to observe the inside) surmounted by a marble plaque carved with the Virgin and Child.
Inside the church, on the right wall and in the apse, there is a cycle of fifteenth-century frescoes by a Ligurian-Piedmontese painter which document, as confirmed by many other frescoes of west Liguria, that the invention of comic strips (at the time depicted as a cartouche) has ancient origins.
From the small square go down the ramp with a brick floor on the right which, past the well in the niche on the right, takes you to Piazza Giudice where a fifteenth-century house in squared stones stands with a beautiful stone portal with an ogival arch.
Continuing along Via Borgo reach the remains of the northern gate of the village, called Portello di San Pietro; on the wall to the right next to the iron hinges there is the quadrangular loophole through which it was possible to strike the enemies out of the walls, and another very narrow and tall one opens on the wall to your left inside the gate to hit the enemies who would have nevertheless succeeded to enter.
Should you want -and had the strength for- a short walk in the countryside, you could go down the ramp and take a right on the paved road; then go down the staircase to the left, go ahead for about three hundred meters to the isolated house just before which you could take the mule track on the left to reach, one hundred meters after the house that stands on the edge of the street, the medieval Fontana del Melo, with a deep stone basin covered by a vault.
Whoever instead continued straight ahead along Via Borgo, would find at number 23 a beautiful black stone portal with medallion-carved jambs with warrior guardian-wizards in bas-relief.
A little further on stands the fifteenth-century oratory of Santa Croce and San Bernardino, restructured in the seventeenth century, which preserves in the single-nave interior, in the original quadrangular apse, now right wall, the fresco "Annunciazione" of the second half of the fifteenth century by Tomaso and Matteo Biazaci da Busca, whose lower part has unfortunately been lost.
During the Christmas period, the building hosts the traditional exhibition of over one hundred nativity scenes.
On the adjacent tree-lined widening stands the proto-Romanesque church of San Giovanni Battista, built around the year 1000 with three naves, of which the north one was unfortunately demolished in the last century to widen the street below.
The building, with a trussed roof covered with stone slabs, is in squared ashlars on which, in the apse and along the south wall, there are small splayed windows with a round arch; near the side entrance are two worn column drums.
Particularly interesting and rare in the interior is the roof of the attic, in coffered polychrome wood; next to the altar there is a marble plaque with carved the dates 1472 and 1482 and the initials A and G on the sides of a scale.
Leave the churchyard and after descending the short ramp turn left along the asphalted Via delle Torri; after a hundred meters you’ll find on the left the ruins of Porta del Mercato, dominated by the high façade of the church of Assunta, with a cross-shaped window in the central tondo.
Further on, thirty meters after the fountain with a worn marble basin, there is on the right, incorporated among the houses, the only tower remaining to justify the name of the street; the quadrangular fort retains the loophole on the street but has been disfigured by a staircase and remodeled into a house.
Resuming the car, pass under the vault and take the left along Via Meloria, pass the other vault and at the intersection go right; immediately after you’ll encounter on the right the tree-lined road that takes to the sixteenth-century church of Santa Maria degli Angeli of the Franciscan convent, with a beautiful cloister.
Continuing by car, after about a kilometer and a half you’ll find on the right side of the road the fifteenth-century chapel of San Sebastiano, with traces of frescoes to the right of the door and a portico with seats with a cross vault supported by massive pillars.
From the low window on the façade you can see the inside, with the apse decorated with fifteenth-century frescoes by an unknown author, a trussed roof and stone seats along the entire internal perimeter; affixed on the right wall there is a rough stone stoup and next to the entrance stands the stone column that supported another one now disappeared.
Continuing by car towards the north, at the first crossroads turn left towards Diano Arentino and then again left following the sign to Pontedassio which in a hundred meters takes you to Diano Arentino.