ALASSIO
Admirable site—Old Alassio—Church of San Ambrogio—Palace
of the Ferreri—Arco Romano—Gallinaria—Saint
Martin—Andora—Oneglia—Andrew Doria, the Admiral—Albenga—Retreat
of the Sea—Proculus—Cathedral—Baptistery—Piazza dei Leoni—The
Towers—S. Maria in Fontibus—Garlenda—Beauty of Drive.
ALASSIO falls short of other winter resorts in no degree, in sweetness
of situation, shelter from blustering cold winds, and in abundance of
objects of interest in the neighbourhood. In climate, in everything
but one, it equals San Remo, Bordighera, and Mentone. The one thing it
lacks is good shops.
Alassio consists of one narrow street a mile and a half in length,
out of which radiate towards the sea passages under arches. It does
not contain, in itself, much of interest. The church and the palace
of the Ferreri exhaust the place. The church of San Ambrogio has a
tower of the thirteenth century, and the old church, altered, remains,
with a later church built on to it in the south in late renaissance
times, that is distinctly pleasing, with its white and black marble and
blue-grey stucco, between the marble pilasters.
The palace of the Ferreri family, with its rich and cumbrous gateways
sculptured with the family arms, contains fine tapestries, family
portraits, and rich furniture.
The arms of the town are curious: argent, a tower out of which rises a
king crowned and wearing garments red and green.
A favourite excursion from Alassio is to the Arco Romano, a Roman arch,
through which a lovely peep of the sea is obtained. To the east appears
the curious isle of Gallinaria, shaped like a snail, with the ruins of
a Benedictine monastery on it. In 358, in the midst of the war against
the Allemanni, when the Emperor Julian was at Worms, Martin, who was
in the army, and a tribune, asked to be released from military duty.
Julian was indignant. A battle was imminent, and he scornfully refused
the petition, and charged Martin with cowardice. The young tribune
replied, “Put me in the forefront of the army, without weapons or
armour, and prove if I be what you say.”
However, the Allemanni asked for peace, it was granted, thereupon
Martin obtained his dismissal. He then went to Poitiers and placed
himself under the teaching of S. Hilary. Then he departed to visit
his parents in Pannonia. As he crossed the Alps he was attacked by
robbers and plundered of all he had. On reaching his native city of
Sabaria, Martin succeeded in converting his mother to Christ, but his
father persisted in his paganism. Then he returned to Italy, and after
tarrying awhile at Milan, where he was vexed by the Arians, he took
refuge on this islet of Gallinaria. There he lived on roots, and nearly
poisoned himself by accidentally eating the hellebore, attracted by its
dark green leaves and pale flowers. Providentially the spasms caused by
the poison came on so rapidly as to check him from eating enough to
kill him; but he suffered great pain, and lay at death’s door. A cave
is shown in the island which S. Martin is traditionally held to have
inhabited. After some sojourn on Gallinaria, Martin left it and went
back to Poitiers.
To visit the curious old mountain village of Andora, one must leave the
train at Laigueglia, before it rushes into the tunnel pierced through
the spur of rock on which Andora stands. The church dedicated to SS.
Philip and James is in Lombardic Gothic of the fourteenth century, and
is one of the most interesting monuments of the style in Liguria. Above
the high altar is a crucifix of carved wood, the figure of natural
size, believed to be still earlier than the church, which dates from
1341.
Adjoining the church is a tower with swallow-tail battlements, that
belonged to the old castle, but has now been united to the church.
There are also at Andora the ruins of a feudal castle, the Parasio, the
residence of the Podesta till 1797. There are also remains of a Roman
aqueduct and a Roman bridge over the river, still in good condition.
Oneglia was the birthplace of Andrew Doria, the great admiral. It is an
ugly town; the prison is in the shape of a cross, with a huge lantern
at the junction of the arms lighted through cockney Gothic windows.
The Dorias, Fieschi, Grimaldi, and Spinolas were the four principal
families of Genoa. Simone Doria, who lived in 1270, was a Troubadour,
and he once had a dispute with Lanfranc Cigala as to which was
preferable, to deserve the favour of a lady or to possess it. Doria
maintained the latter proposition. “I did once suppose,” said Lanfranc,
“that merit carried a lady’s favour, I now know that impudence gains
it. Doria has taught me that.”
Andrew Doria was born at Oneglia in 1468. He was son of Andrew Coeva,
of the Dorias, that were Princes of Oneglia, but as this Andrew
represented a junior branch, he came into but a small slice of the
inheritance, and, dying early, his widow, mother of the great Andrew,
thought it well to get as the protector of her boy Dominico Doria,
belonging to the elder branch, and this she obtained by ceding to him
the rights in Oneglia that had belonged to her husband. Dominico was
then captain of the guards to Pope Innocent VIII., and he put the young
Andrew in his company. Andrew forged ahead, and became a naval captain
of great importance. He had no scruples, and he passed from side to
side, as best conduced to his interests. At one time he fought for
Francis I., and then he went over to the service of Charles V. When
these rivals met at Aigues Mortes, Francis I. mounted the galley of
the great admiral, and noticed a bronze cannon with on it the Arms of
France. He looked hard at Doria, who said, “This gun is of excellent
metal.” “I cast better cannons now,” remarked the King, meaning that he
offered better pay than formerly.
“The Emperor’s metal is good enough for me,” retorted Doria. Francis
turned to the Emperor and said, “You made a good catch when you netted
Doria. Mind you keep him.”
Against the judgment of Doria Charles V. undertook his disastrous
expedition against Algiers in 1541. In 1539 Doria, with the Imperial
fleet, that of Venice, and that of the Pope, lighted on the very
inferior Turkish fleet under Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa, off Previsa.
The Christian strength was really overwhelming. Eighty Venetians,
thirty-six Papal and thirty Spanish galleys, together with fifty
sailing galleons, made up the formidable total of nearly two hundred
ships of war, and they carried scarcely less than 60,000 men and 2,500
guns. Doria was in chief command, Capello and Grimano led the Venetian
and Roman contingents. On September 25th the allied fleets appeared off
the Gulf. Barbarossa had 122 ships of war.
On the morning of the 27th the corsairs were amazed to see Doria sail
away. Germano and Capello went on board the flagship and urged Doria to
engage the enemy; they even implored him to depart himself, and allow
them to fight the battle with their own ships, but in vain.
“The result was practically a victory, and a signal victory, for the
Turks. Two hundred splendid vessels of three great Christian States
had fled before an inferior force of Ottomans; and it is no wonder
that Sultan Suleyman, when he learnt the news at Yamboli, illuminated
the town, and added 100,000 piasters a year to the revenues of
Barbarossa.”[21]
“It was,” says Brantôme, “a common opinion at the time that there
existed a secret engagement between Barbarossa and Doria to avoid
fighting each other on decisive occasions, so as to prolong the war,
which gave both of them employment, and furnished them with means of
acquiring wealth.”
What seems to confirm this was the setting at liberty by Doria of the
renegade corsair Dragut, who had been made prisoner, and who was a
favourite of Barbarossa, and a scourge to the Christians.
In 1547 a conspiracy of the Fieschi almost cost Andrew Doria his life.
His nephew was murdered by them, but at the same time Giovanni Luigi
Fieschi was drowned. Grief and resentment provoked Andrew Doria to
commit acts of atrocious cruelty.
[Illustration: ALBENGA]
Scarcely was this conspiracy crushed, before Giulio Cibo,
brother-in-law of Giovanni Luigi Fieschi, formed another out of the
remnant of the faction. This was discovered; Cibo had his head struck
off, and all the rest of the Fieschi and those who held by them were
banished. The brother of Giovanni Luigi fell into Doria’s hands, and
was by his orders sewn up in a sack and thrown into the sea.
Andrew had been much worried by a pilot asking him for this and for
that. Doria said, “If you speak again to me more than three words, I
will have you hung.” “Pay or discharge,” said the pilot. Doria laughed,
gave him his pay, and retained his services.
Andrew Doria met with a great reverse at the hands of that same Dragut
whom he had released to please Barbarossa. In 1552 Dragut came on him
when he was least awares, and put him to flight. Dragut pursued him,
sank two of his vessels, captured seven of his fleet with seven hundred
German soldiers, and their captain, Nicolas Madrucci.
Andrew died in his splendid palace near Genoa in 1560, at the age of
93, without leaving issue by his wife who was niece of Pope Innocent
VIII.
Albenga, easily reached from Alassio, either by road or rail, is a
most interesting but unhealthy town. It lies low where three rivers,
uniting, empty into the sea, and the plain is made up of deposits
brought down by them. Anciently the sea reached to its walls, and only
withdrew in the tenth century. Albenga was the capital of the Ligurian
Ingauni, and a great naval station. Thence sailed a fleet of thirty-two
ships which fought the Romans in B.C. 20. It helped Hannibal with
ships and men, and when Magone, brother of Hannibal, was wounded, he
retired to Albenga to be cured.
Afterwards it became, but reluctantly, allied to Rome. In the times
of Probus, A.D. 276-282, a native of Albenga, named Proculus, a man
of extraordinary strength, set up to be emperor, but was speedily
killed. Constantine, a grandee of the Court of Honorius, A.D. 395-423,
fortified the town, and he it was who built the Ponte Longo, a Roman
bridge now sunk to the spring of the arches, and deserted by the river,
which has completely altered its course.
Albenga has a most interesting cathedral of the twelfth century that
has been mutilated and altered internally into a rococo temple. The
west front was partly removed in renaissance times and rebuilt,
clumsily; but externally, the east end with its apses tells of the true
antiquity of the church. Hard by is what is still more venerable: a
baptistery, half buried in the soil, of the fifth (?) century. It is
descended into by fourteen steps, so greatly has the soil risen since
it was built. The building is octagonal, and had its windows filled
with pierced slabs of stone; of these fillings in only two remain, one
very rich, with carved interlaced work as well as with perforations.
Within is a large font for immersion, as at Ventimiglia, and the vault
is sustained by eight granite columns, probably taken from a Pagan
temple. The altar is ancient, enriched with mosaic work representing
the Agnus Dei surrounded by twelve doves.
At the east end of the cathedral is the Piazza dei Leoni, where are
three rude stone lions, remains of a monument raised in 1288, but taken
from an earlier Roman structure.
That which strikes the visitor especially, coming from France, are
the towers of the nobles. “Its thirteen mediæval towers,” says Hare,
“remind the Italian traveller of S. Gimignano, rising out of the plain
like a number of tall ninepins set close together.” I do not think
there are thirteen; certainly not that number of lofty towers; but the
earthquake of 1887 damaged, or threw down, several.
The finest are the Torre Balestrino, the cathedral tower, and the Torre
del Comune. Five of the old gates remain. The church of S. Maria in
Fontibus, in Genoese Gothic, striped black and white marble, takes its
name from a spring that rises under the altar, and was supposed to
possess miraculous powers for the healing of lepers.
A beautiful drive from Albenga up the valley leads to Garlenda, where
are paintings by Domenichino, a S. Maurus, a Martyrdom of S. Erasmus,
by Poussin; and a Nativity of Our Lady by Guercino. At the time of the
French Revolution, when the troops were pouring over the frontier into
Italy, the parishioners of Garlenda, fearful of being robbed of these
artistic treasures, removed and hid them.
The road to Garlenda passes through orchards of peaches and fields of
narcissus.
“The valley is radiantly beautiful in spring. Overhead are tall peach
trees with their luxuriance of pink blossom. Beneath these the vines
cling in Bacchanalian festoons, leaping from tree to tree, and below
all large melons, young corn, and bright green flax, waving here and
there into sheets of blue flower, form the carpet of Nature. Sometimes
gaily-painted towers and ancient _palazzi_, with carved armorial
gateways and arched porticoes, break in upon the solitude of the
valley.”—HARE.