Altitude: 240 m a.s.l.
Area: 41 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 20 km
Inhabitants:
- in 1881 4482
- in 2017 1336
Patron Saint Day: January 20th - San Sebastiano
Information: Municipality tel. 0183 36313
The city of Pieve di Teco was founded to exploit the favorable position of the area, the center of gravity between Liguria and Piedmont, with the establishment of a commercial exchange center between the two areas: "In 1232 - a document informs us - the men of the valley of Theco agreed with the Marquises Clavesana, their Lords, to build a village of 200, up to 300 fires (families) with a castle, towers and banks conforming to that of Pavia; the Marquises granted them during the meeting, for the site, the Prairies of Arogna, and in addition, among other things, they exempted them from the consignation of the brides.
That village for the convenience of the Valle d'Arozia and the traffic of Piedmont was built in eight years by the villagers, who called it Pieve di Teco".
The Marquises of Clavesana - who gave up their "jus primae noctis" to encourage its foundation - moved their residence there and the village grew rapidly thanks to the development of flourishing commercial and manufacturing activities that produced paper, soap, ropes but above all footwear for which it became famous.
As a fief of the Clavesanas, Pieve di Teco has always remained, since 1386, an "ally" of Genoa and therefore underwent several attacks (1625, 1744, 1798) and occupations by the Savoys who, however, never managed to conquer it permanently.
In spite of having lost much of its commercial and industrial importance, Pieve di Teco however still remains an active center of interchanges between Liguria and Piedmont which the modernization of State Road 28 should revive.
Visit of the town
Just before reaching the inhabited area, at the end of the straight stretch of road and just before the bridge over the Arroscia stream, take the dirt road on the left which in less than two hundred meters leads to Molino del Longo, faced by the very humped medieval bridge and by the now deconsecrated church of Santa Filomena; the adjacent area, on which a small villa stands today, is the Largo della Forca where the convicts were executed.
The mill (eternally waiting for the restoration that will transform it into a museum) preserves its proto-industrial equipment: visible through the window, above a grinding wheel are the massive wooden presses for the squeezing of the “fiscoli” and, on the right, the stone "pile" topped with wooden gears.
The pole next to the window is the axis of the "omu mattu" ("crazy man"), a vertical winch whose rope was applied to the pole of the press - initially handled directly by hand - to give it the most tiring final stretches.
From the door in the lower right corner of the house you can enter the complex's "engine room", with the eaves that drop water on the wheel whose axis transmits movement to the internal millstones; under the low vault of the opposite small house there is the other wheel that uses the falling water of the first wheel.
Returning to the car cross the bridge and enter the town by turning immediately right (sign to Armo); from the square turn right again, keeping the left until you’ll park in the large Piazza Borelli flanked by the schools and the barracks.
On the side of the square opposite the Manfredi barracks, the cobblestone ramp that leads to the seventeenth-century Capuchin monastery branches off to the right.
The door on the left gives access to the small cloister with the well in the center still served by the original winch which preserves the chained bronze cup used to quench thirst; on the right wall there is a sundial with the motto "Torna, tornando il sole, l'ora smarrita; ma non ritorna più l'età fuggita".
The central door leads into the church, with the black plaque on the left that tells that the building, erected in 1660, was restored in 1736; several other eighteenth-century plaques commemorate the benefactors of the convent.
Returning to the square, pass the circle of walls through the gate to the right of the barracks and then take the left.
Here was the thirteenth-century castle of the Marquis Antonio di Clavesana, demolished with cannon shots in 1625 by Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy at the end of a month of siege; twenty years later on its ruins was built the convent of the Augustinians, which was however abandoned in the eighteenth century; later the building was again renovated, this time adapting it to a theater (of which it still retains the imprint), to then also be used as barracks.
To remind us of fragments of such a tormented past, numerous plaques are affixed on the facade of the building, now in disuse: an Agnus with saints of 1644, several female figures, a Trigram, a bearded male figure and another Agnus in a spiraled tondo.
Going back towards the church, after passing the plaque with the Savoy coat of arms affixed on the house on the left, you’ll see another plaque with an Agnus in relief protected by a roof at number 11; on the right there is one of the gates of the walls.
The square is dominated by the bulk of the majestic neoclassical collegiate church of San Giovanni Battista with a bell tower on the front, designed by Cantoni in 1785 with the large dome resting on three large semi-arches; the whole structure, like the Cathedral of Porto Maurizio by the same architect, is supported by the grandiose dappled columns that mark its internal perimeter, the altar area and the massive external portico.
High on the entrance portal there is a plaque carved with the figure of Christ; inside, the church preserves "The Assumption", the "Madonna with Child" and the "Temptations of Sant'Antonio", seventeenth-century works by Giulio Benso da Pieve di Teco, and the wooden sculpture "Madonna del Carmine" by Maragliano (1664-1741); the most precious canvas, "The Last Supper" by the Genoese Domenico Piola (1627-1703) was instead transferred to the Museum of Sacred Art of Madonna della Ripa.
Leaving the church, cross the churchyard with black and white cobblestones until you arrive under the massive arcades of the central street, which you can walk through turning left to notice the numerous carved stone portals, a proof of the past prosperity of the village: at number 68 the iron door with quadrangular pinnacles, with the Savoy coat of arms; at number 40 the plaque with a Trigram, trees and the Savoy shield; the architrave of 1475 with a Trigram between sunbeams at number 20, followed by the other plaque carved with a scene of the Passion of Christ.
You have thus arrived to the small square of the Clock Tower with a dial on both sides, a marble statue of the Virgin and an international sundial that marks the midday of several European capitals and cities.
Across the street is the oratory of the Immaculate Conception of 1554 with an oval plan, with the inscription: "Oratorium hoc laicum sub protetione serenissimi Senatus" which recalls how the oratory is a secular structure protected by the city Senate.
Going through the arcades on the opposite side you will gradually pass the marble arch with rosette at number 33, in front of number 45 two portals in smooth stone and at number 85 the palace decorated with hanging arches; when you reach number 91 turn left into the alley, observing at number 6 another portal with architrave and jambs decorated with floral motifs.
On the State Road you will be in front of the late-Gothic church of Madonna della Ripa of 1372.
The excavations recently carried out inside revealed traces of the eighth century walls; the current layout, with three naves with four stone columns with dissimilar capitals that support pointed arches, dates back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The interior is decorated with two fifteenth-century frescoes: on the right of the side entrance a gigantic saint, and on the right side of the square apse a Saint George and other saints.
The capitals of the columns are carved also as guardian wizards; the arches are decorated with alternating black and white motifs.
In the church are preserved the altarpiece "Annunciation" (1644) with the "Assumption" by Giulio Benso and the wooden statue "Assunta" by Maragliano.
A little further upstream on the same side of the road is the oratory of San Giovanni Battista of 1234, seat of the Confraternity of the Baptists, which preserved period velvets and damasks, a fourteenth-century wooden triptych, a crucifix and the "Baptism of Jesus" of 1724 both by Maragliano, and the anonymous sixteenth-century polyptych of the saint today in the Diocesan Museum of Albenga; on the walls there are frescoes of 1736 by Francesco Sasso, an artist from Pieve di Teco.
Opposite is the square where the Tourist Office is located.
Continuing upstream you’ll find on the left the sixteenth-century Augustinian convent now used as a school; the cloister, with its twenty-four octagonal pillars dominated by the sixteenth-century bell tower with double lancet windows on the cell, is the largest in Liguria.
Walk another few tens of meters upstream and then return to the village taking the right; among the first houses on the left was the "Reverendo Ospitale di San Lazzaro della Città della Pieve", born as a nursing home for the poor, of which remains the beautiful black stone portal carved with an "Annunciation" of 1402, a masterpiece of the school of Cenova.
Continuing towards the valley, under the arcades on the right, you’ll find the Town Hall housed in Palazzo Borelli with frescoed rooms and then, in the alley on the right at number 59, the portal with a decorated double architrave.
Pieve di Teco is known for its bread and other local products: on Sundays shops are open and the stroll under the arcades can therefore also have a practical motivation.
Returning to the car, on State Road 28 continue upstream reaching Acquetico after about three kilometers: on the open space to the left of the State Road stands the eighteenth-century church of San Giacomo with rough stone walls and the only high part of the bell tower plastered and decorated; among other things, the "Jura Ecclesiae Acquetici", the fifteenth-century Statute of the village, is preserved there.
Opposite there is the rustic oratory of the Assumption of medieval origin with a spire bell tower which still has traces of frescoes at the base; it preserves inside a round stoup in black stone.