Once la Pigna was the pulse of a no longer existing San Remo. It was the actual old town and now it is both the "humblest" and the most spontaneous area of the town. It is full of covered alleys, little squares, and terraced houses together with dull colours and long silences which in turn create emotions and sensations unknown to mass tourism.
La Pigna has to be discovered on foot starting from piazza Santo Stefano and heading to the sanctuary of the Madonna della Costa which is the main religious building in town.
First of all you have to understand well the name of this area - Pigna - which comes from its curling up around the hillock just like the scales in a pine cone. It was born as a stronghold around the year 1000 and it was enlarged and strengthened up to the sixteenth century so as to protect it from pirates' attacks.
La Pigna starts from the fourteenth-century Porta di Santo Stefano (a gothic stone arch) which functions as a parting between the old and new town. Passing under the gate, you will walk along the homonymous street. At its farther end you will turn left in Rivolte San Sebastiano which will lead you to piazza dell'Oratorio dei Dolori (its names comes from the brotherhood of Mercy or of Pain). The entrance to this building is protected by a colonnade on which you can see a sign dating back to 1642. The inside of the oratory is decorated with eighteenth-century frescoes. Just a glance at the palace belonging to the Gentile-Spinola family, then you can walk down via del Pretorio (interesting remnants of an ancient ornamental panel over the door of No. 5) and turn into via Palma which is the main road on the western side of this area.
The house of the Manara family can be found at No. 21 and since it was "the best one in San Remo in 1538" it was chosen to host pope Paul III as a guest on his way to Nice.
Turning into via Montà you can reach the palace of the counts Sapia Rossi (at No. 18) which gave hospitality to Napoleon in 1794.
Back on via Palma, you can keep walking and reach piazza San Giuseppe where the homonymous church stands out. Though its construction started at the end of the seventeenth century, the church of San Giuseppe was finished in the nineteenth century. The statue of Saint Joseph can be found above the outside portal. The inside decoration is somehow eclectic. In the middle of the dome the coat of arms of the town of San Remo clearly testifies the importance of this church for the whole town.
Here the Masons and the Farmers guilds used to gather in the chapel on the left and on the right of the altar respectively. The marble high altar was designed by Soli, the very same engineer who designed Nobel, Anger and Fiorentina villas (which are among the most beautiful villas in town). A sixteenth-century crucifix stands above the altar. In the middle of the presbytery you will see another stone altar with bas-reliefs: it looks like a sarcophagus. Actually it was once a drinking trough for horses and mules. In 1928 the Town Council had placed it by the railway station where there was a parking area for carriages.
In the 1950s all carriages disappeared and so the Town Council decided to remove the trough. The parish priest of San Giuseppe decided to use it in an original way as an altar. The font next to the chapel on the right was also used once for a different purpose: it was a garden well. It is also worth noting that the yellow hexagonal marble tile by the confessional has a fossil shell inside.
On the top of the hillock, you will find the Madonna della Costa (i.e., Our Lady of the Coast), as the sanctuary is called here in San Remo. This seventeenth-century building was once a safe landmark for sailors approaching San Remo. The inside of the sanctuary is richly decorated with marbles and stuccoes. Here you can also find wooden statues by Maragliano and paintings by Domenico Fiasella, Guilio Cesare Procaccini, and Bartolomeo Guidobono. Over the high altar you can see an oval oil painting of the Madonna della Costa painted by Nicoḷ da Voltri.
|
