Altitude: 10 m a.s.l.
Area: 46 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 0 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 7219 - in 2017: 42154
Patron Saint Day: November 26th - San Leonardo
Information: Municipality phone 0183 7011
Visit of the town
Coming from Piazza Dante in Oneglia, continue straight towards Sanremo. After about two kilometers, you’ll find the Town Hall and the building of the Central Post Office, built immediately after the unification in an intermediate position between Oneglia and Porto Maurizio.
In the adjacent Piazza della Vittoria, there is a monument to Edmondo De Amicis, which reads: "The Italian children to Edmondo De Amicis". In fact, most of the 108,000 liras spent on the monument were collected by launching a national collection in which every elementary school student was asked to pay 10 cents.
Just beyond the town hall, about 100 meters away, immediately above Viale Matteotti, in a beautiful wooded park is the Museum of Contemporary Art of Imperia (MACI), which boasts about sixty works by authors of excellence in contemporary art, such as Lucio Fontana, Marino Marini, Ennio Morlotti, Massimo Campigli, Robert Delaunay, and Serge Polyakoff, just to name a few. After visiting the MACI, get back to the car and follow the Aurelia towards Sanremo.
Immediately after passing a traffic light and its intersection, you can take Via Saffi on the right from which, at the first corner, branches off to the right the detour that leads to Piazza Duomo where you can park. You are thus in front of the majestic Cathedral of San Maurizio, begun in 1781 and finished in 1838 on a project by the architect Gaetano Cantoni.
70 m long (82 including the staircase) and 42 m wide, with a maximum height of 48 m at the lantern of the main dome, it’s the largest church in Liguria, of which it is also the most significant example of a neoclassical religious construction.
Anticipated by a wide staircase, the façade has two bell towers on the sides joined by a portico supported by gigantic columns; the main dome is inserted in an external octagonal drum. The grand interior, divided into three wide naves with coffered ceilings, was supposed to be, in the original project, even more airy, with all the columns separated from one another. In the construction phase, however, the spaces between the various groups of columns were prudently filled with walls to improve the static structure of the gigantic complex.
Most of the works of art preserved there are from the nineteenth century, except for the seventeenth-century wooden crucifix by Maragliano, in the left nave, and the statue of Our Lady of Mercy (1618) in the right one.
Of 1516 is the beautiful marble tabernacle carved in bas-relief and embedded on the left wall of the high altar. The latter is dominated by the white marble statue of San Maurizio, by the sculptor Carlo Finelli, a pupil of Canova. Another highlight is the Baroque pulpit of 1640, from the old parish church, which was located on the promontory of Porto Maurizio, from which San Leonardo preached.
On the other side of the square, in front of the cathedral, you can visit the Museum of the Nativity Scene (Museo del Presepe) of Imperia in which is put together, arranged in an elegant air-conditioned case more than ten meters long and over three meters high, a complex of 113 statues carved by the Genoese sculptor Anton Maria Maragliano between 1724 and 1741; the collection is enhanced and completed with the aid of a multimedia show and educational equipments. The adjacent rooms are home to the Art Gallery which includes works that represent different aspects and thematic strands of Ligurian figurative art between early eighteenth and mid twentieth century.
To the right of the cathedral, next to the statue of St. Leonardo of Porto Maurizio, stands the ramp which, going up along the church with two sundials on the bell tower, leads to Parasio, the historic city center.
Entering Via Acquarone and past the black-stone carved overdoor at number 8, you’ll get into what used to be the most elegant district of the seventeenth-century Porto Maurizio, of which many noble buildings remain, including the one at number 24 which has a plaque of 1620 embedded in the atrium, and that at number 21 with a black stone portal that leads to the atrium with cross vaults resting on carved stone capitals inserted in the walls.
Climb the stairs and reach the cobbled square on which stands the fifteenth-century Palazzo Pagliari with a portico with seat; the most curious ones can enter and climb the first flight of stairs, and observe the balustrade in marble columns and the slate portal in the loggia overlooking the square; from the window on the opposite side you can see the mullioned windows that open on the side of the building.
Returning to the small square, climb the stairway next to the Baroque aedicule reaching Piazza Chiesa Vecchia, an area occupied by the original fifteenth-century church of San Maurizio, of which some remains are visible; going up the porphyry paved steps on the side of the sea, you’ll arrive to the widening on which rise on the left a group of houses with a stone portal at number 21 and two twin portals at number 27 and at number 25.
The owner of the latter was probably a somewhat original character, as he welcomed guests with the large writings in the lobby: "Don't expect anything but cheap wine glasses" on one side and "In this house don’t shine golden and ivory ceilings" on the other; and similar inscriptions, all in Latin, follow the guests along the stairs up to the coat of arms with an owl and to the wrought iron gate that ends them.
Cross the square towards the west and pass under the vault at the bottom, going down the staircase to the right: you’ll find yourself at the base of Palazzo Gastaldi, the most elegant eighteenth century residence in Porto Maurizio, which between 1794 and 1796 hosted illustrious guests including generals Napoleon Bonaparte , André Massena and the Representative of the People Augustin Robespierre.
After a few meters turn left following the sign "Logge di Santa Chiara"; flank the oratory of San Pietro on which are embedded the remains of the altar of the Black Christ (1703) by Pietro Ripa and also the coat of arms of the Littardi noble family, in whose palace not far away were hosted illustrious personalities of the Italian Risorgimento including Camillo Benso count of Cavour, linked to the Littardis by solid friendship.
Reaffirming the civic-social function inherent to the very concept of oratory, a plaque recalls that in 1252 the first mercantile companies promoting the convention with Genoa were housed there, and that the building was also "hospice in death, granary in famine", and community Parliament.
About the relations with Genoa, so heavy were the taxes imposed by the “Superb” city (i.e. Genoa), that the city of Porto Maurizio even wanted to dedicate a plaque to the undying memory of the man who finally managed to have them abrogated: "Long live the glorious name of the good Garibbo - who for his town the exemptions obtained - and of taxes he relieved the burden" says the embedded marble.
The oratory, still the seat of the Confraternity derived from the “Compagnia dei Mercanti”, was completely rebuilt in 1595, while the frescoed loggia was added to the facade in 1714. The interior is elegant in a single nave with a barrel vault and walls entirely frescoed by the painters from Porto Maurizio Tommaso and Maurizio Carrega.
The open space in front of it offers a panoramic view to the west; in front you’ll see the so-called Monte Calvario, on the top of which stands the eighteenth-century oratory that preserves the statue "Madonna with Child" of an anonymous fifteenth-century artist; in the background on the seashore rises the truncated-cone tower of Prarola, built after a terrible incursion of the ruthless Saracen pirate Dragut in 1562, as part of a vast coastal sighting and signaling system, to which also belonged the tower later incorporated as a bell tower of the oratory of San Pietro.
From the widening take a paved street with bricks in the center that leads to the panoramic Logge di Santa Chiara, built on the sixteenth century walls of the town. To dominate the broad stretch of sea below remains, at the east corner, the bastion with loopholes later widened into windows, clearly visible leaning from the last loggias. Above the entrance door is embedded a black stone tondo carved in a Trigram, and in a Trigram are also carved the black stone balustrades of the terraces of the massive building, seat of the convent of Santa Chiara, with windows protected by strong bars.
Crossed the widening overlooking the sea, pass under the vault on the left with a plaque dedicated to San Maurizio, thus reaching the church of San Leonardo, of 1612, incorporated between the houses, which preserves seventeenth-century paintings by Gregorio de Ferrari and Domenico Bocciardo; the next door is the one of the house where on December 20, 1676 Paolo Girolamo Casanova was born, the secular name of San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio; the subsequent simple stone portal with an ogival arch marks the entrance of a small convent of the Franciscan Fathers, who from the original seat moved there in 1870, after the repressions decreed by Vittorio Emanuele II.
A little further on you’ll find two other portals with Trigram-carved architraves.
Go back along Via Santa Caterina and up the flight of stairs to the right of the vault, and after a few meters descend into the open space in front of the Convent of the Order of the poor sisters of Santa Chiara, voted to the most rigorous enclosure. The small door at number 5 leads into a small atrium concluded by an opening with a revolving window that allows the passage of objects, while preventing any possibility of contact, even if only visual, with the interior of the convent.
From the door at number 11 you can enter the parlor with a robust railing through which you can communicate directly with the Poor Clares authorized for external interviews. The convent, founded in the fifteenth century, came to house up to forty nuns; much more reduced today is the number of those who have decided to spend their entire lives in total segregation to live in the poverty, prayer and meditation imposed by the Franciscan rule, dealing with the production of hosts and the maintenance of the sacred vestments of all the parishes of the city. One of them has also created the tenderly naive model of the convent, displayed behind the grating of the parlor.
Annexed to the convent is the eighteenth-century church of Santa Chiara whose back wall is replaced by the dense wrought-iron grille that separates it from the convent's back chapel, from which the nuns follow the functions invisibly; above is the balcony of the choir, brightly decorated, as well as the whole interior, but the richness of the Baroque, so often flashy, is here softened and dimmed by the weighty atmosphere of mystical recollection that pervades the whole environment.
Leaving the church, climb the staircase that leaves the access gate to the walled town to the left, and continue under the archway returning to the side of the oratory; from there turn right and then immediately left and, descending along the road, you will at first encounter Palazzo Littardi and immediately after you’ll be able to notice the façade of Palazzo Bensa, elegantly decorated with Rococo stuccoes. A plaque reminds us that Count Elia Bensa, a Mazzinian and first deputy of Porto Maurizio at the Cisalpine Parliament, hid there for several months Giuseppe Mazzini, sentenced to death for conspiracy and wanted by the Savoy police.
A little further on, a staircase descends to the loggia of Porta Martina, one of the access ways to the oldest town. In the loggia are embedded at the top several plaques carved with noble emblems, while below are window-doors of ancient shops; here was the Banco della Ragione of the city, of which the base of a stone capacity measurement unit remained, embedded on the parapet overlooking the street.
Going down the street and turning back, you can see a plaque with a Trigram between angels above the arch of the vault and two other marble ones on the jambs, invoking the protection of San Maurizio over the walled citadel.
Get back to the car and back to Via Aurelia; turning west, take the second street on the left that goes down to Borgo Marina, which it is advisable to cross in order to go and look for parking at its eastern end, turning right as soon as you pass the headquarters of the Imperia Naval Museum, easily recognizable.
The Naval Museum of Imperia revitalizes spaces recovered from buildings that in the past have played a significant role during the heyday of the local industry, when Imperia played a leading role in the world oil trade. The exhibition, rich in objects and instruments that document the evolution of the navy, also includes a section of underwater archeology and is made even more alive by a series of recreational and interactive stations.
In the same building of the museum, but with an independent entrance, is the Planetarium named after the 1975 Nobel Prize for Medicine Renato Dulbecco, the second citizen of Imperia to have deserved that very prestigious recognition, after Giulio Natta, who conquered it for chemistry in 1963. In summer, on the port quay, now only for tourism, there is a point of embarkation to take daily excursions that go up to 15-20 miles from the coast in search of dolphins, whales and other cetaceans of which there are quite frequent sightings.
Leaving the quay behind and past the small church of Maris Stella, all spiers and pinnacles, continue westwards, keeping the right until beyond Piazza Sant'Antonio, thus reaching the Church of the Knights of Malta (Chiesetta dei Cavalieri di Malta). The simple stone building has the apse with three splayed single-light windows and is decorated with hanging arches and a stone cornice; on the left side opens the ogival arched portal surmounted by the now very deteriorated fresco with the symbols of the Knights of Malta.
Right next to it stood, since the middle ages, the city hospice, which – as remembered by a plaque - among the many travelers passing by, in November 1343, hosted Francesco Petrarca returning to Florence after a trip to Avignon. In 1362 the Knights of Malta Bartolomeo and Maurizio Corradi wanted to place next to the hospice the small church that you see, restored in 1665 by the Counts of Lengueglia.
If you want to take a walk along the seaside, go to the left of the apse and at the crossroads go to the right on Via Boine for a hundred meters, taking the “passeggiata dell’amore” ("walk of love") on the left, a romantic path on rocks overlooking the sea that takes you to the characteristic square cluttered with the fishing boats of Borgo Foce.
If instead you are more interested in beaches and sailboats, from the apse of the church go back along the alley that faces it and continue along the whole length of the port reaching the monument to the Caphorniers, the intrepid seafarers who rounded Cape Horn on fragile sailboats; there begins the “Molo lungo” ("long pier"), a walk that offers you a wide view of the city from the sea.
Once you have finished the visit of the city, return to the itinerary of the excursion starting from the traffic light on Via Aurelia that you had left to reach Piazza Duomo.
Turn right on the Aurelia, after about thirty meters turn again to the right and go through the tunnels continuing straight, following the sign to Montegrazie. Park in the little square of the school and turn left to reach the Baroque churchyard of the Santissima Annunziata parish church with a sundial on the façade, faced by the coeval oratory.
In the church, the beautiful polyptych with canopies and gold background "Madonna and Saints" by Carlo Braccesco of 1478 is preserved to the right of the high altar; above the left altar is the marble statue "Madonna delle Grazie", here transferred from the fountain of the Sanctuary that you will visit.
The trunk of the column embedded outside to the left of the entrance and then carved with the date 1779 of the inauguration of the new building constitutes, together with the loggia opening to the right beyond the road, what remains of the original church. Two remaining single-lancet windows are better visible from the fourteenth-century Fontana Pianello (reachable in about fifty meters taking the descent to the left of the other fountain on the road), covered by a stone arch whose keystone bears the cross of the Knights of Malta who built it.
Back to the car, go back to the crossroads where you’ll turn left reaching, after passing under the arches of a water pipe that served the oil mill to the right, the tree-lined square on whose upstream side is the niche of the fountain that kept the statue of the Virgin you have seen in the church; in front of it stands the Sanctuary of Nostra Signora delle Grazie, built in 1450 in well-hewn “colombina” stone, on the site where the Virgin miraculously healed a deaf-mute girl.
The façade with a stone rose-window is preceded by the small portico supported by two columns, from which the hanging arches go around the entire attic of the building, enriched in the central apse by a double festoon braid decoration; on the left side there is the side door with an Agnus carved on the keystone.
The bell tower consists of a former barbarian Turkish defense tower which has been extended to make it taller. The interior, covered with trusses, is divided into three naves by black stone columns carved with the Maltese cross, bound by pointed arches with dissimilar capitals.
The walls are almost entirely decorated by the rich cycle of frescoes realized in 1483 by the brothers Tommaso and Matteo Biazaci from Busca: on the left wall are strongly represented the Vices and Virtues, the Pains of Hell and the Heavenly City of the Blessed; the left apse is dedicated to the stories of the Baptist, and the right one to the life of Saint James of Compostella. The right wall was instead frescoed with scenes of Christ’s Passion by Pietro Guidi da Ranzo, who also represented himself in self-portrait in the character with a sword and a pointed hat that exits the second scene.
Next to the sanctuary stands the fourteenth-century chapel, with a Gothic portal with alternating black and white ashlars, which is probably the original church.
Back to the car, descend from Montegrazie to the junction on the right which leads to Moltedo, once divided into "Superiore" belonging to the county of Prelà and therefore to the Savoys, and "Inferiore" belonging to Porto Maurizio and therefore Genoese, with all the complications that it's easy to imagine.
Parked the car in the open space at the beginning of the town, past the nineteenth-century oratory of the Immaculate Conception with a churchyard built on a large porch, you’ll reach the seventeenth-century parish church of San Bernardo, known above all because it preserves, to the right of the high altar, the "Holy Family" painting by the Flemish artist Antoon Van Dyck (1599-1641).
The famous Antwerp painter arrived in Genoa in 1623 and worked there for a few years, but in 1627 he had to flee hastily, chased by a couple of noble husbands to whose wives he had not limited himself to making the portrait; taking refuge in the unknown Moltedo, he seduced there the most beautiful woman in the valley, eternalizing her features in the image of the Madonna at the center of the painting.
In the church are preserved other minor works of art, including the anonymous polyptych "Madonna with Saints" and, on the left wall, a "Saint Catherine" attributed to Giuseppe Massa; noteworthy are also the sixteenth-century confessionals in carved walnut and the seventeenth-century main altar in inlaid marble and alabaster.
In the sacristy an original carved stone baptismal font now serves as a sink.
Continuing beyond the church you’ll encounter, in front of the fountain with a watering trough, the oratory of Saint Catherine, once named after Saint Bernard as engraved on the black stone portal of 1705; continue past several arches, loggias and roof terraces and then cross the small bridge that leads to the tiny oratory of Sant'Agostino, with a fresco and a sundial on the façade, built on a vault that crosses the stream below.
Behind it, traces of the past nobility of the village are in the now fallen into disrepair palace with a roof terrace disfigured by a window, and in the other more modest manor house with carved stone balustrades now very deteriorated that you can find at the top of the steps of Via Carmelo, which goes up on the side of the wash house.
Back to the car, descend again to Caramagna and at the junction take on the right the road that leads to Vasia.