Altitude: 70 m a.s.l.
Area: 15 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 9 km
Inhabitants:
- in 1881 2234
- in 2017 1478
Patron Saint Day: July 20th - Santa Margherita
Information: Municipality tel. 0183 279026
The name of Pontedassio is believed to derive from the “ponte di assi” (bridge of planks) that crossed the Impero stream near an oil mill.
The toponym could also be read as "ponte di Assio" and not "ponte di assi", according to the aforementioned local etymology that would connect the origin of the name to the construction technique of the oldest bridge located in the Pontedassio area.
Linked to the events of Oneglia, it was a fief first of the bishop of Albenga, then of the Dorias and finally of the Savoys; in the fifteenth century it became the capital of the Castellanìa di Bestagno and later passed together with Oneglia under the dominion of the Savoys.
Visit of the town
The State Road 28 crosses the village; you can enter by turning left at the stone fountain with a mask, thus parking in the large widening; cross back on foot the State Road, go down along it for about thirty meters and then take the left going up Via Cuneo, from which at the first crossroads turn left again and take Via Cavallotti.
Shortly after passing the oratory dedicated to the Virgin you’ll encounter a marble aedicule of 1886, followed at number 9 by a fourteenth-century house in squared stone blocks, with two ogival arch stone portals on the ground floor and a similar one on the window.
Continue and at the crossroads go down to the left to reach on the opposite side of the State Road the church of Santa Margherita rebuilt in 1880; of the previous fifteenth-century building remain the lower part of the bell tower, the capitals and the column trunks scattered on the churchyard facing the left side of the building.
Inside, to the left of the entrance next to the baptismal font is preserved the triptych of 1506 "San Bartolomeo between San Giovanni and Santa Caterina" by Luca Baudo da Novara; the statuette "Madonna and Child" is by an anonymous 17th century artist.
Among the religious-inspired associations once operating in the village is particularly noteworthy the Confraternity of the Disciplinanti, which organized Easter paraliturgical events that constituted a felt and popular survival of sacred representations.
The famous Spaghetti Museum which preserved in Pontedassio the proto-industrial equipment of the Agnesi pasta factory was transferred to Rome.
Returning to the car, upon leaving the parking lot go down to the left and at the crossroads turn left towards Bestagno; after crossing the Impero torrent, in three kilometers you will reach Villa Guardia, formerly called "Villa dei gatti".
Of the primitive parish church of San Matteo only the fifteenth-century bell tower remains today incorporated in the seventeenth-century oratory of San Carlo with a rustic stone staircase, and a sundial on the south wall.
Opposite stands the ancient Sanctuary of Madonna della Neve of Villa Guardia, 3 km from Pontedassio, which is one of the most interesting of the Impero Valley.
The parish church dedicated to San Marco was swept away by a terrible landslide caused by a violent rain in 1802.
The Sanctuary of Madonna della Neve became a parish church to replace the one dedicated to San Matteo, which was swept away in 1802 by the same landslide.
The current parish of Madonna della Neve is a building dating back to 1580. The main entrance is framed by a slate portal dated 1606. The interior has three naves divided by paired columns, with a dome above the main altar. Above the portal, is the low relief with the Madonna and Child, Saint Sebastian and Saint Andrew.
Object of popular devotion is the statue of the Madonna dei Miracoli with the child in her arms, probably by Mirano, placed on the high altar within a modeled frame; it bears the inscription "Regina Miraculorum" in a scroll, and has been blessed on August 4, 1640.
Opposite the Sanctuary is the Oratorio San Carlo Borromeo (1858) which is the transformation of the ancient church of "Madonna dei Miracoli", of which the bell tower remains (15th century).
The primitive parish church dedicated to San Matteo stood at the beginning of the town and it also disappeared with the landslide of 1802. In its memory was built in the same place the little church of San Matteo. It is celebrated on September 21 on the anniversary of San Matteo , who is the patron of the parish church.
The Cenacolo (Last Supper - end of XV century, beginning of XVI century), a sculptural group permanently exhibited in the church of Villa Guardia, looks out with an arch close to the right nave and represents the moment in which Jesus affirms before the Apostles that one of them, that very evening, would betray him. It is a very rare three-dimensional replica of the Last Supper painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
Continuing on the detour you’ll reach Villa Viani with the sixteenth-century church of Assunta flanked by the oratory of San Giuseppe.
In the above square, on the facade of the house on the right there is a sundial and on the house on the left a portal in marble and black stone; higher up in the village stands the small abandoned oratory of San Bartolomeo.
Going back take the detour to Bestagno to the right and, after passing the circular stone building, fifty meters before the sign indicating the town, take the detour which branches off to the right in correspondence with a low house with a garage, leading to the ruins of five hundred years of sieges and armed clashes: its walls take us back almost a thousand years and still tell us about the bloody medieval events, the Saracen nightmare and the many ferocious battles that were fought and won here before the final defeat.
Back to the road to Bestagno at the crossroads with the bus sign, keep left and continue taking the detour to the right that leads to the church of San Michele, one of the oldest parish churches in the valley, located next to the cemetery.
Built in 1272, the building retains, after the seventeenth-century reconstruction, the original lower part of the south wall and the apse with a very narrow splayed single lancet window; inside there is still among other things the seventeenth-century coffin in which all the deceased of the area were transported to this cemetery, the only one in the valley.
Returning to the provincial road, turn left and enter Bestagno, formerly the capital of the homonymous castellania (i.e. the territory under the control of a castle) also called "Costa dei Verdi".
On the white and black cobblestone churchyard of the eighteenth-century church of San Sebastiano with a double-dial sundial on the facade there are column trunks of the previous church of the fifteenth century, and other original columns today serve as seats for the homonymous coeval oratory that faces it.
After this detour return to Pontedassio and go up along State Road 28; upon arriving at the crossroads instead of following the indication to Turin continue straight on and then take the detour after a couple of kilometers to the right which takes to Gazzelli, a thirteenth-century fortified village where there was a Doria castle of which there is no trace left.
The baroque parish church preserves in the second altar on the left the seventeenth-century canvas "Visitation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin" by an unknown author, originally kept in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Angels which is located below the town.
If, exiting the church, you take the ramp to the left, you’ll immediately find a door with carved black stone jambs on the right, and a little further, at the crossroads, a Baroque aedicule with a plaque of 1606.
Continuing by car along this detour you’ll arrive to Chiusanico after about three kilometers.