Altitude: 499 m a.s.l.
Area: 8 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 18 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 659 - in 2017: 274
Patron Saint Day: September 2nd - Sant'Antonio
Information: Municipality phone 0183 52425
The etymology of the toponym Lucinasco, mentioned in medieval sources of the XIV-XV century in the Lexenasco or Lesinasco form, is rather uncertain even if in the Liber Iurium of the Republic of Genoa the Vexinasco form occurs in 1233.
If the latter form were the original one, it would seem plausible to derive the toponym from the Latin vicinus with the suffix -asco, of clear Ligurian origin but still very frequent in the Middle Ages.
However, we cannot even exclude the Roman personal name Licinus as a basis, nor even the noble name Licinius, perhaps due to the presence on the spot of an ancient gens Licinia, which would have given rise to the name of the place as a land toponym.
In 1150 the village was granted in fief by the Albenga bishop Odoardo to the Counts of Ventimiglia Filippo and Raimondo, but in 1437 it was conquered by Giovanni Fregoso, Lieutenant of the Municipality of Genoa, from whom it was later forcibly taken in 1455 by Onorato Lascaris, linked to the Ventimiglias; still long disputed by Genoa, it would finally be bought in 1575 by Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, remaining since then a Savoy possession.
Visit of the town
Park in the village near the parish church of Sant'Antonio, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, which retains of the original structure only a few columns and the tabernacle on the left.
The marble sculptures "Scenes of the life of the Virgin" on the right side altar as well as the group of the "Pietà" are by Lazzaro Acquarone (1540-1610), a native sculptor remembered by a stone plaque of 1620 affixed in the church to the left of those who enter, while on the right there is the valuable wrought iron gate that protects the baptismal font.
Opposite the church stands the oratory of San Giovanni Battista which houses the Lazzaro Acquarone Museum of Sacred Art.
Here are exhibited several works, including the eight wooden polychrome statues of the "Lamentation over the Dead Christ", a striking fifteenth-century work by an anonymous local sculptor; the stone bas-relief of 1597 by Lazzaro Acquarone; eighteenth-century liturgical equipments of the Confraternities; sacred paintings on wood and canvas, and sacred sculptures from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.
In the building adjacent to the oratory have been rebuilt with period furnishings the kitchen, bedroom and living room of a late nineteenth-century farmhouse; going back fifty meters on the same Via Roma, you can visit the reconstruction of a "blood-based" oil mill (i.e. with animal traction), a cellar, a stable and an exhibition of antique craft tools.
Up from Lucinasco rise two splendid churches.
The first is the Gothic-Romanesque church of Santo Stefano, dated 1437, which you’ll encounter continuing along the Provincial Road in a very suggestive excursion and particularly suitable for a stop in the greenery: the building stands on an area bounded by a dry-stone wall, mirroring itself into the small homonymous pond surrounded by meadows and weeping willows.
The massive architrave of the portal surmounted by a large rose window is carved with a stylized Crucifixion and with the coats of arms of the Ventimiglias (eagle), of the Dorias (barred shield) and of the Savoys (lion); given the times, the wise stonemason must have thought that it was better not to hurt anyone.
An Agnus is carved on the keystone, surmounted by a crude cross carved on an upper ashlar; the interior is very simple and bare, with a nice railing to protect the baptismal font.
Following the accurate road directions, from there you can reach the Gothic-Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maddalena in about fifteen minutes by car, a splendid, perfectly preserved fifteenth-century building, surrounded by a pleasant grove on a lawn.
The compact stone facade is pierced by a rose window with a rare lace motif, and enriched by a series of hanging arches with pointed arches that continue along the side walls, on the two lateral semicircular apses and on the central quadrangular one with a splayed oculus; on the façade the arches on the left are decorated with corbels carved as guardian wizards, animals and flowers, while on those on the right the fantasy has dictated to the stone-cutter the insertion of a swallow's nest.
The black stone broken-arch portal has the architrave carved with a central cross inscribed in a ribbed circle and angels with Madonna and Child on both sides, and the date of construction (1480).
To the right of the portal, just a bit over a meter from the ground, one of the large ashlars that make up the façade is carved in a crude and delightful bas-relief triptych with small arches that respectively stand above the Virgin with Child in the center, and a Saint and Mary Magdalene on the two sides; the relief, distinctly archaic, is by craftsmanship and location unique throughout the whole Ligurian west.
The interior of the church, covered with trusses, preserves the original sixteenth-century frescoes in the apse of the central nave, divided from the two lateral ones by agile stone columns with dissimilar capitals; to the right of the altar is affixed the first stone with the date 1401.
The rustic and severe walls are still impregnated with ancient atmospheres, vibrant with an intimately felt and deeply experienced sense of the divine; here the worshippers prayed under the eyes of the impressive "Lamentation over the Dead Christ" that you saw in the museum.
At the end of this detour, from Lucinasco return to the State Road 28 on which you’ll continue northwards, taking after 600 meters the detour on the left that leads you to San Lazzaro Reale at the confluence of the Reale and Impero streams, the latter crossed by a suggestive fourteenth century bridge on two arches; in the Baroque parish church is preserved the "Madonna with Child" triptych attributed to Pietro Guidi da Ranzo.
Keeping the left continue on the Provincial Road that in less than two kilometers takes you to Borgomaro.