"Paesaggio roccioso e austero simile ai più forti di Calabria, asilo di pescatori e di contadini viventi a frusto a frusto in un lembo di spiaggia che in certi tratti va sempre più assottigliandosi, nuda e solenne cornice di una delle più primitive d’Italia. Monterosso; Vernazza e Corniglia, nidi di falchi e di gabbiani, Manarola e Riomaggiore sono, procedendo da Ponente a levante, i nomi dei pochi paesi, o frazioni di paese, così asseragliati tra le rupi e il mare"
—E. Montale, Fuori di casa, 1946-1964
Vernazza[1] (in Ligurian: Vernassa, locally Vernasa; Latin: Vulnetia)[2] is an Italian town in the province of La Spezia,[3] in Liguria. Coming from the west, Vernazza is the second of the villages that make up the Cinque Terre,[4] in a bay between the municipalities of Monterosso al Mare and Riomaggiore. Famous for its picturesque village, perched on the slopes of a rocky spur that faces the sea, surrounded by green hills, for the particularity of the dry stone walls where, for centuries, vines and olive trees have been cultivated.
Vernazza[5] borders to the north with the municipalities of Pignone, Beverino and Riccò del Golfo di Spezia, to the south it is bathed by the Ligurian Sea, to the west with Pignone and Monterosso al Mare and to the east with Riccò del Golfo di Spezia and Riomaggiore. The municipal body is made up of the five hamlets of Corniglia, Drignana, Muro, Prevo and San Bernardino for a total of 12.3 km².
The village of Vernazza is located at the end of the narrow valley formed by the Vernazzola stream which constitutes its central artery, has an exceptionally intact urban fabric, divided into a series of alleys and steep stairways. Its mountainous areas reach an average of 600 m, with the peak of about 800 m of Monte Castello above Vernazza.
An image of Vernazza seen from the sea.
The inhabited area is located along the bottom of the narrow valley, with very steep slopes, appearing to the eye as mountains rising from the sea. The watercourse flows into the sea forming a coastal indentation towards the west, which makes the inlet the only safe harbor existing in the stretch of coast between Portovenere and Levanto. Considered therefore the major historical port of the Cinque Terre, a place of shelter for the naviglio, as well as the embarkation of oil and wine.
Climate
An image of Vernazza seen from the port.
The climate is very favorable, placing itself between the middle latitudes, protected by its own mountains from the cold northern air, being well covered by the winds of Grecale and Scirocco and, partially, also of Libeccio. Thanks to the Apennine, the cold air masses stagnate in the Po valley thus diverting into the northern Ligurian valleys.
The coast is favored by mild air exposure, enjoying temperatures with average isotherms generally ranging between that of 18 ° C and that of 7 ° C, so as to be generally known for the sweetness of the seasons typical of the Mediterranean climate.
Geomorphology
An image of Vernazza seen from above.
Erosion, transport and storage are the agents of a long modeling process that over time has given life to cliffs, engravings, caves, rocky esplanades and the bay with the promontory. From a geological point of view, the Vernazza area is essentially made up of layers of turbidite and zoned sandstones, conglomerates of sedimentary, magmatic and metamorphic rocks.
The strong inclination of the slopes has given the possibility to create terraces that have reached the sea. The terracing is the dominant landscape element of this landscape that harmoniously follow the morphology of the slopes, thus obtaining greater stability of the walls, facilitating the work of the farmers.
Terracing system
The terracing system in Vernazza.
In the arrangement of a very steep natural terrain, a system supported by a wall, mostly dry, is used, which serves to reinforce the terracing. In the first working approach in trying to model the steep slopes and the woods with their own hands, people put together a team of daily farmers and masons, choosing the most suitable place to start the work. Some workers are specialized in dry stone construction, while others have the function of unskilled workers, therefore employed in transporting the material and clearing the forest.
The position of the workplace is primary, especially for its conservation, being careful to regulate the external drainage of the terraced field, so as to regulate the flowing waters. The first phase involves the burial of the ground to modify its slope and regularity, free it from rocky outcrops and to reclaim it from the wood. Through sieves the earth is separated from the stones, where the latter is used as a filling in the deepest part of the excavation, also used as drainage for water infiltrations. The fertile soil is transported and taken from the woods near the work area, used to increase the layer of arable land in the terraces arranged higher up.
In the lower part of the wall the larger stones are used which in this way gives more stability to the base. All the stones, both those of the wall face and those of the filling, must be placed at the tip, with the faces of greater development arranged perpendicular to the external face. Each stone, both of the external facing and of the filling, is arranged in such a way as to present the maximum possible stability, generally obtained by ensuring that the stones have as many points of contact as possible.
A photo of Vernazza taken from one of its beautiful terraces
During this phase it is necessary to take care to position the stones in the most orderly and regular way possible, so as to avoid the generation of internal forces that can amplify the thrust action of the ground. When the roughness does not allow a correct positioning of the stones in the wall, these protrusions are generally eliminated, while the maximum stability of the larger elements can be obtained thanks to the interposition of scales, i.e. small stones from the wedge shape to be inserted between one element and another. Whenever possible, the smoother faces of the stones used in the masonry face must face outwards, while the more irregular faces must be reserved for the internal parts of the masonry, where they favor the mutual bond of the elements.
The construction at the end has a well-defined system with an almost completely terraced side, supported by walls between two and three meters high. Generally, after the harvest, the plot is exploited with an interlayer crop consisting of broad beans, cabbage, beans, although it is estimated that 70% of the cultivated area is mainly vineyards. The terraces with the oldest walls that have survived to this day are located in the territory of Vernazza and in the area of Fossola and Schiara, the so-called: "Cinque terre minori" located between Riomaggiore and Portovenere.
The vine and the wine
An image of Vernazza and a vine.
From the earliest times on the Mediterranean Sea the ships with loads of wine sailed and were very appreciated, that is the "Greek wines". According to Varrone, one of the best was the one coming from the island then called: "Chio" or "Scio", considered a luxury and highly sought after item. In the Carolingian period, wealthy feudal lords and aristocrats drank wines of oriental origin, known as "Romanian" wines, as they came from the Eastern Roman Empire. A Romanian wine doubled the purchase price once it reached an Italian port and quadrupled it if it was to reach an inland city such as Bologna, Milan or Turin. The more advantageous costs of transport by sea made it possible to reach even distant markets, winning the competition of local productions that had to travel overland distances. The wine trade in the Mediterranean was therefore a customary trade that had consolidated over the centuries and represented an extremely profitable economic sector.
The fortunes of the wine trade were determined by the high demand of the urban markets, with the high concentration of the population and the considerable amount of consumption. In Genoa the so-called "navigated" wines because they crossed the sea coming from the Greek islands, were preferred to those produced in the neighboring territories. Until the Renaissance period a great interest continued to develop in those fine, strong and aromatic wines, sought after by the wealthiest social classes. Between the 12th and 16th centuries was the Republic of Venice that dominated the trade of sweet wines from southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands, in particular from Sicily, Cyprus, Crete and other Greek islands. Despite this, Genoa had also managed to enter trade with the smaller ports of the Ligurian coast.
A photo of Vernazza seen from Cuntra
In this historical framework of very intense commercial movements and notoriety of the amiable wines of the Greek tradition, it is possible to insert a precious oral testimony, still alive in the ancient Ermirio of Vernazza family, which handed down that from the island of Chios it had been imported a vine from which the renowned Sciacchetrà passito wine is produced, grown in these territories. The inclusion of the Ermirio family in trade with the Levant is documented by various sources: with their ancestor Jacopo Ermirio they covered the delicate role of Genoese ambassadors in the war waged against Venice in 1350-55. At the time the family resided in the Genoese colony of Galata on the Bosphorus, where it had obtained concessions from the emperor Cantacuzeno himself. A short time later, in 1363, the Ermirio were again entrusted with embassy with Guglielmo, working against the attacks of Genoese citizens by Pisani, Venetians and Sicilians. But the Ermirio were already attested from the previous century in the Aegean when they obtained immunity and privileges to the Thessaloniki starting from 1261.
These events make us understand how and when the tradition of "Greek" wine had moved to Vernazza from the islands of the Levant, becoming the backbone of its economic development and the transformation of its territory. It therefore seems possible that it was not the Municipality of Genoa that dictated the commercial developments of the small village, but the entrepreneurial initiative of some Genoese families who brought the winemaking tradition from Genoese Romania to the Cinque Terre. One of the reasons that led Vernazza in the direction of cultivating the terraced slopes of vineyards, certainly emerges the profitable market for fine Mediterranean aromatic wines. This element was the historical and economic link with the Greek islands, in particular with Chios. Another reason can be identified with the Ottoman occupation of the eastern Mediterranean territories which began in the fourteenth century, causing inevitable consequences on the centuries-old routes of the Greek wine trade.
Urban plan
Medieval age
A historical photo of the Pier (Mȫ) of Vernazza before 1952
During the course of time, various settlement systems have overlapped, creating a complex building fabric still present today in the houses of the Vernazzesi, which reflects the various archaeological phases of the village, identifiable through the analysis of the walls. The current urban layout of the town of Vernazza is therefore the result of a subdivision plan dating back to the 11th-12th century, which was built on the remains of the previous early medieval settlement.
So far only a few intact wall portions of the eighth and ninth century survive, consisting of the remains of buildings of the Eulitic type, a term used by the scholar and paleographer Osvaldo Garbarino, to identify a way of building a structure, generally built with local stone, characterized by a highly symbolic and almost monumental use. The only building in Vernazza[6] that shows sufficient eulitic structure to make it still possible to understand the primitive architectural aspect, is visible upstream of the railway station, in the house now marked with numbers 1 and 3 in via Gavino, and it is the building that was used as a hospice in the village until about the mid-nineteenth century.
The original masonry, freed of the plaster and restored, shows that it was a large building, with a square plan of about eleven meters on each side, at least three floors high and equipped, at each level, with twin portals on the elevations facing the stream. and the internal road of via Gavino. When a new phase of reconstruction subsequently began, the broken lintel of a large twin portal, protruding from the corner of the house at the intersection of via Carattino with via G. Guidoni, demonstrates in fact that both the building that encompasses it and the street which accesses Piazza Marconi, were obtained within what remained of the perimeter of a pre-existing building, and similar situations can also be found at numbers 16 and 18 in via Visconti and at number 1 in via Vernazza.
A historical photo of Vernazza before 1944
According to the scheme put in place by the Genoese respectively between 1145 and 1161, and between 1147 and 1178 the construction of the houses lined up and aligned between the road layouts, are presented in multi-storey stone, making them look like tower-houses, so that they can be used as the walls of a fortification, should circumstances require it. The remains of these Vernazzese architectures, conventionally definable as "Romanesque type", still emerge numerous from under the plaster. Some late Romanesque examples of the thirteenth century can be identified at number 7 in via Visconti and at number 10 in piazza Marconi of the fourteenth century.
Some housing complexes are often equipped on the ground floor with coupled openings with slightly acute and crescent arches, this identifies the fact that architectural elements typical of Genoese municipal architecture are scarce, making the Vernazzese building of this phase look more like models derived from Pisa than from Genoa. In the twelfth century Vernazza appeared as a village enclosed within a wall. What remains of the medieval defensive perimeter today is visible along the Reggio road, which runs along the north side of the San Francesco complex, thus preserving the only stretch still intact. Just above this building, the remains of one of the guard towers survive, with a round plant with a vertical shaft, which provided the perimeter, called in dialect: “a Turi”. The structure of the tower has very irregularly textured walls, made with unworked split stones of small size, quarried on site and walled with lime.
The ancient device regulating the sound of the bells inside the bell tower of the parish church of Santa Margherita d'Antiochia
Through part of the Romanesque subdivision in the remains of medieval houses, one can guess the shape and size of the fortified village. Extending the wall that still exists alongside the convent of San Francesco, the wall continued down to the course of the vernazzola, crossing at the current railway station via a pier flanked by two towers. The walls then rose from the canal to reach the tower on the blue path, near the Prêtécia locality, still standing today, but perhaps rebuilt on the basis of ancient remains in recent times.
Consequently, the walls reached the castle, continuing along the ridge of the promontory to the tip of Belforte. On the opposite side it descended along the southern side of the Franciscan settlement, up to the parish church of Santa Margherita. Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries these defenses became useless due to the invention of firearms. This made them lose their function, later demolished as they were considered too invasive from an urbanistic point of view. The hillock of the Castle was renovated in the forms that exist today, the entire apparatus was then integrated with the Belforte bastion guarding the port, remaining active until the end of the eighteenth century.
Post-medieval age
A historical photo of the â Cruxi square
After a purely artisan and mercantile culture, most of the walls of Vernazza from the thirteenth century onwards are the product of simple and cheap building constructions that used the local stones with lime mortar as a building material. These working techniques lasted until the mid-twentieth century, until the arrival of a new market with new synthetic materials, of industrial production today.
The buildings built between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries are generally in solid walls, differing very little from the irregular medieval walls, except for the fact that in many cases there are used in variable quantities fragments of bricks and plaster recovered from the rubble of old buildings, as they were considered to improve the cohesion of the materials and the effectiveness of the mortars. The photographic documentation existing on Vernazza shows that in the second half of the nineteenth century a series of building adjustments had already taken place that had completely canceled or hidden the medieval traces on the facades. The windows were all rectangular, very large and numerous, and the slate pitches of the roofs abounded with flat terraces and added volumes.
A photo of Vernazza taken from the Doria Castle
Furthermore, most of the houses were plastered, but not always all of them. For purely economic reasons, still in the nineteenth century many buildings did not have this type of finish on the outside, but occasionally a rough plastering of the surface. The plastering was often performed only on the inside and in some cases extended to the external squaring of the window jambs. Similarly, the colors of the façades, so characteristic today, seem to have remained relatively rare until almost the middle of the twentieth century. The photographic documentation available from the second half of the nineteenth century portrays Vernazza with just over half of the plastered houses and about a third of the painted facades. The colored buildings already configured a decoration similar to the current ones, being very simple, limited to the underlining of the frame lines of the window frames.
In modern times, Vernazza's ornate stone architectural motifs are quite rare. From the eighteenth century onwards, the entrance doors have almost all the transom window and the simple squaring in pillars of fine sandstone slate. The Renaissance slate portals carved in bas-relief are also almost absent. At number 18 in Piazza Marconi it is however possible to admire an example in marble from the 16th century, while at number 24 in Via Roma you can instead find a rustic portal of late medieval / Renaissance invoice, with the Monogram of Christ engraved on the architrave (IHS).
List of important people from whom the streets are named
A photo of Piazza Guglielmo Marconi
Ettore Vernazza: Founder of hospitals and shelters for the dispossessed, father of Battistina, poetess and writer of theology.
Marco Antonio Carattino: Born in 1631, he is known to have commanded a ship in the Venetian fleet, who died in the battle of Malvasia as a Knight of St. Mark.
Giambattista Visconti: Father of that Ennio Quirino, archaeologist and scholar of great fame, who compiled the "lconographie ancienne" by order of Napoleon I and helped the poet Monti, unaware of Greek, to translate the Iliad.
Origins of the name
An image of Vernazza.
The origin of the toponym can be identified in four hypotheses: the first that derives from the Latin adjective: "verna", which can be translated as "indigenous" or "of the place", in this case the town would therefore have the same name as the famous wine (Vernaccia) that was produced there and therefore was known to be the "local" or "nostrale" wine. The second hypothesis derives from the corruption of the Latin hibernacula, from which it would derive consequently: abernacula, avernacia and vernacia, indicating a maritime station of the Roman fleet, established in the locality during the war against the Ligurians.
Another hypothesis would identify Vernazza with the toponym Vulnetia present in Guido's Geographia (VII century AD) and the Bulnetia of the Anonimo Ravennate: this theory was effectively contested by Mario Niccolò Conti, who identified Framura as the place named by the two geographers early medieval. The most convincing derivation of the toponym, in fact, would seem the fourth hypothesis, namely that from Hibernatia loca (from hibernare = wintering), which seems to suggest what Vernazza could have been in ancient times: a safe harbor, sheltered from winter winds, easily usable by the maritime traffic of small cabotage, even if only as a temporary base.
History
Ancient age
An image of the Doria castle from the bell tower of the parish church of Santa Margherita d'Antiochia
The first evidence of human presence in the Cinque Terre and in the surrounding areas consists of the deposits of the Grotta dei Colombi[7] on the Palmaria island, where remains of burials, bones and fossils of animals have been found, and some flint artefacts, attributable to the Paleolithic, when, probably, the island was still joined to the mainland.
The Neolithic period is instead witnessed through the discovery of polished green stone axes, found a little further downstream from San Bernardino, dating back to between 5500 and 5400 BC. Other important evidence is present with the Menhir of Tramonti and that of Monte Capri which seem to date back to 2000 BC. In addition, other testimonies of human life can be found in the tombs in Cassetta di Soviore, Bardellone and the two of Monte Santa Croce di Vernazza that date back to 250-200 BC. at the time of the Second Punic War.
Another important source is found with Tito Livio (book XXXIX, 32) which tells of Sempronio, who, starting from Pisa, moves against the Ligurians. It is therefore the Roman-Ligurian wars in 238 BC, the beginning of the Roman expansion in the gulf and looking out onto the coast following the ancient road and ridge path, that is today's path no. 1, under which small settlements will be formed.
"Erano molto meno progrediti dei loro fratelli della Riviera di Ponente. Lavoravano con fatica una terra aspra e non fertile; i ritrovamenti mostrano che erano poveri, di costumi semplici, probabilmente facili a prendere le armi gli uni contro gli altri o contro i vicini. Erano, però, predoni più che guerrieri, e lo dimostrano ampiamente le guerre contro Roma, pronti a devastare un territorio confinante, ma incapaci di organizzare una spedizione lontana, come quelle galliche. [...] Non di loro ma degli abitanti della Riviera di Ponente, Strabone dice che erano dediti alla pirateria, tanto più che i porti eran rari. Vivevano aggruppati in villaggi, e le guerre contro i Romani mostrano che sapevano riunirsi di fronte ad un nemico comune."
—Luisa Banti
Liguria presented in the Tabula Peutingeriana.
Another very interesting evidence derives from the Levant road system, attested in the so-called Tabula Peutingeriana, a 12th-13th century copy of an ancient Roman map showing the roadways of the Roman Empire from the 3rd century AD. In it is represented a road that starts from Luni and, passing through a place named Boron, climbs towards the interior of the Apennine ridge, within the Gulf of Spezia, the Vara basin and along the coast of the Cinque Terre, of Levanto and Framura.
Most of the names mentioned are not written inside the Tabula, but the itinerary continues at the Tigulio and then heads towards Genoa. The Cosmographia of the Anonymous Ravenna integrates the data of the Peutingeriana with other more up-to-date ones. In the territory where Vernazza is located, the Tabula names a network of roads that connect nine Byzantine districts between Luni, Boron and Moneglia. All this should therefore represent the Levantese area, reinforced by the fact that the name Cornelia corresponding to Corniglia also appears.
If such an identification of the toponyms contained in the document is assumed to be reliable, the port near Cornelia can be identified as Hibernatia, or today's Vernazza. It is possible that already at the time the port of Hibernatia was equipped with facilities for the storage of materials and the shelter of boats. However, it is very likely that only between the fifth and seventh centuries, when the site perhaps became a Byzantine military base, the promontory of the Castle was also equipped with defense equipment.
Medieval age
High Middle age
A photo of the bell tower of the church of San Francesco seen from outside the convent
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Lunigiana, together with the coastal part of Liguria, was part of the Byzantine Maritime Province Italorum. As the historian Fredegario writes in his Chronicle, in 643 a Lombard army descended on the Ligurian coast, sacking and devastating the cities. The inhabitants were taken prisoner and the surrounding walls razed to the ground, so that they could not somehow serve the rebels to the new kingdom, thus reducing the urban centers to mere suburbs.
According to most scholars, this bloody raid was carried out by the Lombards shortly before November 23, 643, the date of the promulgation by their sovereign Rotari. After this event, the fact that these places have had a depopulation of the territory cannot be excluded, forcing the inhabitants to run for shelter in the innermost villages, like some traditions that link these war events to the destruction of villages near the churches of Soviore and Reggio. The definitive conquest of the Ligurian coast left the Lombards in full control of the northern Tyrrhenian.
The previous Byzantine positions changed radically, since at the beginning of the eighth century the whole southern coast of the Mediterranean had already fallen into the hands of the Arab caliphs. According to a letter from Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne in 777, it is understood that the Lombard infantry had also settled in the island possessions of the Church of Rome.
This leads to the fact that they could be officials of the king with the task of organizing local surveillance, strengthening or creating strategic settlements in defense of the coast. The goal, perhaps, was not to fortify isolated villages, which, once conquered, could themselves become a base for the invader, but to build surveillance points, which systematically covered the territory of entire districts, by means of which it was possible to give alert by transmitting signals from one place to another.
Since for centuries there was no longer an organized army with professional soldiers, like the Roman one, all free men capable of handling weapons were called to fight where necessary. Therefore from this organization both farmers, settlers and soldiers (called "Arimanni" by the Lombards), concentrated on exercising vigilance, taking care of the maintenance of roads and points, and storing the food reserves useful for the provision of troops in transit in these places.
A photo taken inside the Genoese defensive walls around the convent of San Francesco
This control system was organized to prevent the creation of unattended areas, therefore easy for enemy intrusions. Vernazza could very well fall from this case, since it was equipped with several places suitable for the mooring of ships, including a well-sheltered natural harbor. At that time Vernazza was perhaps located halfway between a Roman legionary camp and that of a medieval village, exploited by Arimanni who worked as sailors on warships.
Their existence is in fact widely documented in Pisa, which was the main base of the Lombard fleet, and therefore it cannot be excluded the fact that Vernazza, at the time, was probably a base of support for Pisa in the Ligurian Levant. The early medieval village of Vernazza was probably equipped, like the one today, with a fortress on the top of the promontory, to protect the port, and perhaps even already two churches. Vernazza in the Lombard period was undoubtedly the military and administrative center of a large district, the precise areas of which are not documented.
In fact, the inhabitants of the Longobard Hibernatia did not have full ownership of the houses they lived in and the land they cultivated, but only the right of use, which had been granted to them by the Royal State Property. This organization limited the individual initiatives in expanding the arable land and favored a collective management of the available resources, always planned and regulated by those who administered the curtis on behalf of the king. Probably the agriculture practiced by the colonists was mainly subsistence, limited to the production of the land and the collection of what was due to them as a census.
A photo of the parish church of Santa Margherita d'Antiochia taken above the Doria Castle
In 774 the Lombard Kingdom fell into the hands of the Franks and, in the year 800, it became part of the newly established Holy Roman Empire, which remained firm until the death of Charlemagne, which took place fourteen years later. However, already during the reign of his successor, Louis the Pious, a process of crisis began which culminated in 843 with the division of the empire itself between his sons Lotario, Ludovico il Germanico and Carlo il Calvo. The political weakness of the Carolingian Empire had the most serious effect of the disintegration of the administrative and military system and, consequently, the loss of strategic control of the territory.
Many external enemies took advantage of this, among which the most active and dangerous were the Saracens of the various Islamic Caliphates of North Africa and Andalusia. Therefore the Ligurian settlements, being defenseless, were the most exposed, consequently creating insecurity and a progressive abandonment of the coastal religious centers. So much so that between the second half of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th, the funds and settlements scattered in the countryside were almost all abandoned and, with them, most of the surveillance points on which the strategic control of the territory was based.
In order to stem the defections and keep the territory populated, already in the second half of the 9th century the Carolingian kings had begun to grant powers for the construction of castles and fortified settlements to counts, bishops and marquises. II which seems to indicate a process of building up the territory that has already started some time ago and implemented according to a very specific strategy, consisting in the foundation of fortified settlements in the immediate hinterland, in order to gather the settlers dispersed in the countryside and at the same time welcome the population fleeing the coast.
After the formation of the Obertenga brand, which took place in 951, which, as is known, then politically and militarily incorporated both the districts of Genoa and Luni, the transformations of Vernazza in this period are therefore linked to those of the settlements in the neighboring internal territory. Among all, the fortified village of Ponzò had to accommodate the greater part of the Vernazzese refugees, as it was then the seat of its feudal lords, called precisely: "Lords of Ponzò and Vernazza" in the twelfth century.
Middle Ages
The first documented news of Vernazza, as the first castrum of the Cinque Terre, dates back to an act of 1080, in which the castrum Vernatio is mentioned as a maritime base of the Obertenghi. On February 29, 1080 the marquis obertengo Alberto Rufo, together with his wife Giulitta, sign a deed of donation by which they assign the court of Frasso in Corsica to the monastery of San Venerio from Tino.
"Anno ab incarnacione domini nostri ihesu xpisti millesimo quinquagesimo pridie kalendas martii indicione tercia. Monasterio santi uenerii quod est constructum in insula maris loco ubi dicitur tiro.ego albertus marchio filius quondam alberti itemque marchionis et iolicta comitissa iugalibus filia uberti comitis de comitatu parme qui professi sumus nos ex nacione notra loge uiuere langobardorum et michi iulicta iam dictus albertus marchio uir et mundoaldus meus michi consentente et subter confirmante presentes presentibus diximus quisquis in sanctis ac uenerabilibus locis ex suis aliquid contullerit rebus iuxta auctoris vocem in hoc seculo centuplum accipiet in super et quod melius est uitam possidebit eternam Jdeoque nos qui supra albertus marchio et iulicta iugalibus donamus et offerimus a presenti die in eodem monasterio sancii veneri, pro anime nostre et de genitore meo alberto marchione et ugone germano meo mercede, id est curtem unam iuris nostri quam abere uisi sumus in insula corsice loco ubi dicitur frasso cum omnibus casi et rebus terretoriis mobili bus et inmobilibus seruis et ancillis ad ipsa curte pertinente silua et caza de viva.quam allem suprascriplam curtem tris nostri supradictam una cum accessione et ingressu seu cum superioribus et inferioribus suis qualiter supra legitur in integrum ab ac die in antea in codem monasterio sancti uenerii in iure et proprietate donamus cedimus et conferimus, et per presentem cartam offersionis in eodem monasterio sancti uenerii habendum confirmamus faciendum exinde pars ipsius monasteri.aut cui pars ipsius monasteri dederit legaliter proprietario nomine quicquid voluerit sine omni nostra et heredum nostrorum cuntradicione. Equidem espondimus atque promittimus nos suprascriptis iugalibus una cum nostris heredibus parti ipsius monasterio, aut cui parti ipsius monasterio dederit suprascriptam curtem de frasso qual iter superius legitur in integro ab omni homine defensare quod si defendere non potuerimus, aut parti ipsius monasterio exinde aliquid per quoduix ingenium subtraere quesierimus, tunc in duplum suprascriplam curtem parti ipsius monasterio, aut cui parti insius monesterio dederit legaliter restituamus, ita ut abbas et monachi qui pro tempori fuerint in codem monesterio abeant ad uictum et sumtum et westimentum quicquid exinde dominus dederit annue de predicta curte sicut pro tempore curs fuerit meliorata, aut ualuerit sub estimatione in consimili loco.hanc enim cartam offersionis pagina chonradi notari et indicis sacri palati et auocatore nostro tradidimus et scribere rogauimus in qua etiam subter conurman testi hus obtulimus roborandam; actum in castro uernatio feliciter; Signum ++ manuur suprasciptorum domi alberti rufi et iulicte comitisse, iugalibus quique hanc cartam offersionis pro anime eorum et domni alberti marchionis et ugoni filius eius fieri rogauerunt et hoc signum sancte crucis albertus rufus marchio fecit et idem iulicte coniugi sue consensit ut supra; Signum +++ manuum einrici de passiano et ogerii wesillifer de figino seu alberti de noui et raimundi de baise lege uiuentes longobardorum rogati testes; (S.T.) Ego qui supra chonradus notarius, aduocatus et iudex sacri palati, scriptor huius carte offersionis post traditam compleui et dedi; testes einricus de pasiano, raimundus de baise, albertus de noui, ogerius de figine actum vernacia curtem de frasso de Corsica placitum destrictum seruis et ancillis excepta caza de uiua."
—Alberto Rufo, 1080
"Nell'anno dell'incarnazione di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo 1050 (1080) il 29 di febbraio, ind. Terza. Al Monastero di San Venerio che è eretto sull'isola del mare dove si dice il Tiro, io Alberto marchese, figlio del fu Alberto pure marchese e Giolitta contessa mia moglie, figlia del conte Uberto del comitato di Parma, che dichiariamo noi essere e vivere della nazione e legge dei longobardi; ed io Giulitta del detto Alberto marchese marito e mundoaldo (responsabile dei miei diritti) col mio consenso e in conformità, noi qui presenti ai presenti diciamo che chi ai santi e venerabili luoghi ecclesiastici conferisce cose sue di quello che da in questo secolo riceverà il centuplo per cui riceverà la vita eterna (Matteo 19, 29; Marco 10, 31: Luca 18, 30). Cosicché noi Alberto marchese e Giulitta coniugi doniamo offriamo a partire da oggi al detto monastero di San Venerio, per l'anima nostra e del mio genitore Alberto marchese e Ugone fratello mio, mercede e cioè: una corte di nostra proprietà che abbiamo nell'isola di Corsica nel luogo ove si dice Frasso con tutte le case e le cose mobili e immobili della terra, servi e serve ad essa corte appartenenti, e una "cascina" per i raccolti. La quale detta corte suddetta con i suoi accessi e ingressi, sopra e sotto, in integro da oggi in avanti sarà in diritto ed in proprietà di detto monastero di San Venerio. Doniamo, cediamo e conferiamo e con la presente carta di offersione/donazione allo stesso monastero di San Venerio e la confermiamo presentandogliela sicché d'ora in poi (detta corte) farà parte dello stesso monastero, o parte di esso. Dandogli legalmente quale proprietario ogni volere senza alcuna nostra e dei nostri eredi contraddizione. Al tempo stesso in verità dichiariamo e promettiamo noi sopraddetti coniugi unitamente ai nostri eredi consegnare la detta corte di Frasso sopradefinita difesa e difendere da ogni uomo, ci impegniamo con ogni modo a proteggerla da ogni turbamento di possesso che sarà, e da ogni e qualsiasi sottile ingegnosa rivendicazione; e ciò mancando da parte nostra risarciremo il monastero o parte di esso con il doppio del valore, si che l'Abate e i monaci che saranno in detto monastero avranno vitto spese e vestiti annualmente per il tempo che questa corte sarà migliorata e ciò varrà secondo le stime del luogo. Questa carta di offersione, questa pagina, al Corrado notaio e giudice del sacro palazzo e avvocato nostro diamo e preghiamo di scrivere, la qual pagina sarà confermata dai testimoni in calce; data nel castello Vernatio/Vernazza felicemente Segno di croce (due) dei soprascritti signori Alberto Rufo e Giulitta contessa coniugi che questa carta di offersione per le loro anime e del sig. Alberto marchese e del di lui figlio Ugone pregarono fosse fatta e questo segno di santa croce il sig Alberto Rufo fece e la stessa Giulitta coniuge sua consenti come sopra; Segno di croce (tre) di mano di Enrico Da Passano e di Ogerio vessillifero di Figino e Alberto di Novi e di Raimondo di Baisa, tutti viventi con legge longobarda testimoni richiesti - S.T. Io qui sopra Corrado notaio avvocato e giudice del sacro palazzo ho scritto questa carta di offersione e quindi l'ho trasmessa/consegnata e data. Testimoni Enrico Da Passano, Raimondo di Baisa, Alberto di Novi, Ogerio de Figino. Dato in Vernazza; corte di Frasso in Corsica placito/diritto nel civile e distretto; servi e serve; e cascina per i raccolti."
—Alberto Rufo, 1080
Image of the Doria castle of Vernazza.
From it we learn that the ancient dock was active again and garrisoned by a fortress of which almost nothing remains today. It is also possible that the entire defensive structure had similar characteristics to the remains still visible in the former Franciscan convent. Despite the efforts made by the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire to restore order in the Italian peninsula, for the entire 11th century the political-military situation remained uncertain and, consequently, living in a place exposed to attacks from the sea such as Vernazza , it was still not very coveted as it was probably dangerous. In addition, it was extremely necessary to rebuild a military navy, again attracting army men suitable for these tasks to Vernazza.
It is therefore likely that the actual repopulation of the Vernazza site was carried out by free men, and was successful by virtue of guarantees given by the marquises, regarding full respect for their social condition and their customs, in exchange for maritime services. -military. Many of these habitatores were undoubtedly descendants of the early medieval Guarigangs who, during the 10th century, had continued to cultivate the coastal agricultural land. The re-urbanization of the port, probably carried out in the mid-11th century, left Ponzò almost deserted and certainly had negative demographic effects on other settlements as well.
According to the relative modesty of the first adaptations carried out on the church of Santa Margherita, we must think that at the beginning of the 12th century the Vernazzese community did not yet enjoy significant economic resources. The development of commercial traffic, but above all the domiciliation in the village of subjects belonging to local feudal families, however, caused the situation to evolve in a positive sense. In fact, by the middle of the century the religious building was already renovated. The free homines of Vernazza soon assumed independent attitudes towards the feudal lords, collaborating with their equal coastal communities.
In 1165 the Vezzano family sided with Pisa in one of the frequent wars against Genoa. Since Enrichetto di Carpena, vassal of the Vezzanesi, threatened the maritime traffic of the Genoese, he was confronted and defeated by them with a strong attack on his castle, carried out by surprise just before dawn. The operation was successful as Simone Doria, Genoese commander, gave permission to the Vernazzesi to secretly disembark the military contingent in their port during the night.
This episode did not yet sanction a submission of Vernazza to Genoa but represented a simple aid given to a nearby seafaring power, perhaps in order to establish a mutually advantageous alliance against the military hegemony of Pisa. In fact, after just four years, the Vernazzesi participated with their own galley in the preparation of a war flotilla, together with the communities of Portovenere, Passano, Sestri and Rapallo, with which they began to plunder Pisan ships. Some time later, having made peace with Pisa, Genoa was forced to use force precisely against Vernazza, as the former ally continued alone, on its own, the lucrative war activity to the detriment of the Tuscan ships.
A photo of the bell tower of the church of San Francesco seen inside the convent
After attempting diplomatic warnings, which proved useless, in 1182 the Genoese sent the army, which conquered the castle and returned all the money stolen to the Pisans. This time, however, the Municipality of Genoa demanded from the Vernazzesí a formal oath of loyalty, as well as the presence in the city of their permanent delegates, and this event can be considered the definitive entry of the Levantine village into the political sphere of Genoa. The following years saw in Vernazza, as in all coastal villages subjected to the protection of the Genoese municipality, a drastic downsizing of the power exercised by the feudal lords. In 1207 Enrico da Ponzò himself made an act of loyalty to Genoa, also swearing before the consuls of the people of Vernazza, which in the meantime had therefore constituted itself as a free municipality.
Two years later, Guglielmo, son of Enrico da Ponzò, alienated all the residual rights that the fiefdom held on the castle and the properties it had in the village, thus creating the conditions for the definitive entry of the Municipality of Vernazza into the Genoese Compagna. The oath of "eternal fidelity" was ratified in the same year, and individually signed by all the heads of Vernazzese families, who promised to make their homes and possessions available to Genoa, and to carry out the orders of the consuls and the Podestà. The latter, who impersonated the highest office of local government, had in fact a permanent residence within the village, in a house obtained from the union of two adjoining houses, today marked by numbers 18 and 20 on Piazza Marconi, which thus it also served as the administrative seat of the Podesteria.
From the thirteenth century onwards, the history of Vernazza was closely linked to that of Genoa, with which it shared political, economic and even military fates. In 1210 the Vernazzesi came to help the men of Portovenere to drive out the Pisans who were devastating the vineyards on the island of Palmaria. The action was successful and enemies were fleeing on their galleys. In 1241, Vernazza found itself dangerously involved alongside Genoa, in the war between the Pope and the Emperor. The Levantine village was placed under siege by the army of the Marquis Oberto Pelavicino, vicar of Frederick II, but managed to resist until the arrival of a fleet of Genoese galleys commanded by Ansaldo De Mari, who favorably resolved the situation.
Templar cross in Vernazza.
A few years later, during one of the many clashes that took place between the republics of Genoa and Pisa, the latter occupied the territory of Vernazza for a certain period, returning it following the injunction issued in 1254 by the Municipality of Florence which presided over a special arbitration. The Pisan threat nevertheless remained a serious problem for the whole Ligurian Levant until August 1284, when the Genoese fleet definitively prevailed over its rival in the famous battle of Meloria. In the second half of the 13th century Vernazza was part of the vast dominion that Nicolò Fieschi, descendant of the Counts of Lavagna, had managed to form in Lunigiana for a certain period. He, supported by his uncle, Pope Innocent IV Fieschi, had obtained from Guglielmo, bishop of Luni, the feudal rights on a large number of lands and had acquired others from Genoa itself, exploiting the favors of the Guelph faction.
It was, however, a political forcing, which was soon nullified. In 1276 Nicolò was in fact forced by an arbitration to sell the whole set of possessions and rights to Genoa, thus decreeing for Vernazza the definitive end of any residual link with the feudality of marquis origin. During the end of the 13th century, Vernazza underwent a progressive economic growth of the community. Some Vernazzesi served as oarsmen on Genoa's warships, including the case of a Vernazzese who in 1281 deserted from a galley en route to the East. These events further confirm the maritime vocation of Vernazza, but also the expansion, at that time, of the economic and cultural horizons of its inhabitants, led to share the international routes of the powerful ally.
Plaque located inside the church of N.S. di Reggio of the Templar Knight Guglielmo da Loreto.
In fact, in the same period there are news of Vernazzese merchants doing business in Genoa and of shipowners renting their ships for the maritime transport of various kinds of products. The Genoese-type "merchant" lodges that can still be seen at the intersection of Via Vernazza and Salita San Francesco, and at number 70 of Via Roma, are also clear evidence of this economic vivacity. During the thirteenth century the church of Santa Margherita was set up with hospitable functions, since at the time Vernazza was also used to welcome travelers.
From this it is possible that the complex was entrusted to the Templars, as a boarding base for the Holy Land. The significant presence in the church of Reggio of the tomb of the Templar monk: Guglielmo da Loreto, would lead to indicate this hypothesis, together with another element, namely the existence of a possible residence of this chivalric order, the latter fact is put in also related to a series of crosses carved in relief on the portals, attested in the XII-XIII century.
Modern age
A photo taken inside the Doria Castle
The capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 changed the overseas political and economic context of the Genoese Companion. Subsequently, a series of wars overlapped, fought from 1494 to 1559, mainly on Italian soil, between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg Empire for the domination of Europe, during which Genoa was occupied several times militarily by one and by the other faction.
From this climate of political confusion and institutional instability, Muslim pirates from North Africa, called "barbareschi" by Europeans, took advantage. They began to plunder the ships of the Christian states on behalf of the Ottoman Empire and to scourge the coastal settlements of the peninsula with sudden and bloody raids, impoverishing entire regions. The fatal tradition of these raids, of the violence and destruction perpetrated in them, is also very much alive in the historical memory of the Vernazza community.
The situation began to change when Admiral Andrea Doria, who passed from the French to the Hapsburg coalition in 1528, obtained full independence from the Genoese sovereign state from Emperor Charles V. Instead of imposing a Lordship with himself at the head, he promoted the drafting of a new constitution, for which the Compagna Communis was abolished and the Republic of Genoa established. With the Habsburg support, the Genoese were thus able to regain part of the lost land and the one hundred years that followed, were called "the century of the Genoese" because the city experienced a period of political rebirth and economic expansion, comparable only to that which followed the Crusades of '11th and 12th centuries.
A detail of the cross of the Templar knight Guglielmo da Loreto in the Rèzzu area (Reggio)
The main objective of the strategy implemented on the Ligurian territory by the new government was above all to re-establish the safety of the routes and landings, and to reaffirm its authority over the cities. This was perhaps the first of many interventions to adapt the defenses in the coastal settlements carried out in the second half of the 16th century, including that on the castle of Vernazza.
The medieval enclosure on the promontory, too weak to withstand the blows of firearms, was incorporated into a new structure formed by walls of several meters thick, with the external profile inclined to dampen the impact of the bullets. In addition, a bastion tower was built to protect the landing place, called "Belforte", equipped with gunner windows. The old wall of the village was partially demolished and, probably in this same period, the tunnel was built, known as the "Foro della Madonnina", which channeled the Vernazzola stream beyond the promontory, leaving the square and the port most protected from burial completely free.
Although the danger represented by the Barbary marauders was completely eliminated only in 1830, as a consequence of the French conquest of Algeria, already chased by the reorganized Genoese surveillance of the coasts and the victory of the Christian fleet in the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Muslim incursions significantly decreased. At the end of the sixteenth century, the fragmentation of the medieval family consortia of Vernazza is undoubtedly the cause of an initial phase of adjustments made to the architecture of the houses. The introduction by the Republic of a new form of taxation called "avaria" (ie "tax on assets"), erased the residual traces of feudalism and generalized full private property.
A photo of the defensive walls around the convent of San Francesco
Due to the compact fabric of the Vernazzese village, which in fact prevented horizontal expansions, there was a need to increase the independent housing, which these volumetric increases mainly materialized in the increase in the floors of the buildings and the construction of internal condominium stairs, in in order to make all the individual housing units independent.
The medieval loggias were closed or eliminated, making the most of all the available volume and thus dividing the premises. The windows increased proportionally in number and many roofs were arranged in a flat terrace to be able to exploit them as external working areas, creating above them pergolas and volumes containing the access stairs or service rooms.
This structure, however, did not remain so for too long, as the properties tended to regroup. On 16 August 1618 the Franciscan Fathers Minor arrived in the village, officially invited by the community of Vernazza, for the construction of the convent the Malagamba family donated a chapel dedicated to San Michele and Sant'Antonio in the locality of Torre, near the ruins of the medieval wall. In 1625 the friars' living quarters were almost completed, and a new, larger chapel was consecrated, so as to allow them the daily service. Given the conspicuous influx of Vernazzesi to religious services, after about twenty years the construction of the large church dedicated to San Francesco, which still exists today, was imposed.
The church of Santa Margherita became a parish in the 14th century, replacing Nostra Signora di Reggio,[8] probably enlarged before the visits of Cardinal Lomellini in 1568 and Monsignor Peruzzi in 1584, imposing adjustments according to the liturgical indications of the Council of Trent. These renovations, carried out at the beginning of the seventeenth century and during the following, in fact did not modify the medieval envelope, but unified the entire space with a precious Baroque decoration and determined the construction of new marble altars: evident signs of the presence in Vernazza of a patronage in comfortable economic conditions. The local economy between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had in fact to be lively, with peaks of high income, since the centuries-old link with the Republic had brought families of Vernazzese merchants into the vast colonial world controlled by Genoa.
Contemporary age
A historical photo from 1908 of the Doria castle
At the end of the eighteenth century the Republic of Genoa, of which Vernazza has been a part since 1276, is in a very serious crisis. The consequences are having poor economic conditions on the country. Genoa proves unable to free the sea from Barbary pirates, preventing even the smallest maritime traffic from navigating, thus degenerating the relationship with the rest of Liguria. Ligurian wines, especially white ones, whose transport at the time had very high costs and risks, are replaced in Genoa by Piedmontese reds, produced in the fiefs that Genoese notables have in southern Piedmont.
Vernazza, which was the port of embarkation for the Cinque Terre wine, proved prostrate, where the population of the town decreased from this economic crisis. In 1797 Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Italy brought the end of the aristocratic Republic of Genoa, and the birth of the Ligurian Democratic Republic, of Jacobin inspiration, formally independent until 1799.
As it normally happens everywhere, during the change of regime, historical notes on the town they inform that the tree of liberty stands in Vernazza, a symbol of the values affirmed by the French Revolution. From this point of view, the Vernazzese Municipality in December 1797 posed the problem of how to behave with citizens who did not want to wear the cockade. When the French were expelled in 1799 and the Austrians returned, the "municipal agent" of Vernazza struggled to collect taxes, forcing himself to justify himself with the Austrian "Cesarea Regia Imperiale Regenza della Spezia".
A photo of the entrance to the Sanctuary of Madonna di Reggio
While the French were victorious in 1800, the Vernazzese economic situation worsened even more. In 1801 some villagers failed to pay taxes, while others showed up without even the necessary food. In 1803 the population reached the lowest values never reached until then, in 1642 Vernazza had 1100 inhabitants, in 1803 it had only 708. The Ligurian Republic replaced the Genoese podesterie, which in the Cinque Terre were two, namely: Monterosso and Vernazza. Subsequently in France it passed from the Republic to the Empire and in 1805 the Ligurian Democratic Republic was annexed to the French Empire. The territory was divided, according to the French organization, into four departments: Genoa; Montenotte; Apennines; Maritime Alps.
The three municipalities were born in the Cinque Terre: Monterosso, Vernazza and Riomaggiore, where at the time Corniglia and Manarola were aggregated to Riomaggiore which were part of the Apennines department with capital in Chiavari and districts in Chiavari, Borgotaro and Sarzana. The French carried out many public works in Liguria, which did not result in Vernazza or in the other towns of the Cinque Terre. The economic situation continued to worsen, as navigation proved impossible due to the naval blockade with which the British closed the coast. They did not just plunder the ships flying the French flag, but also made land raids, as it turned out in Monterosso, where they invaded the country for hours, plundering two boats loaded with tobacco and terrorizing the population, as happened in Vernazza, where they took away a small sailing ship.
According to the manuscript: "Vulnetia" by G.B. Luciani, it described the English who landed and fired, forcing the people to retreat to the valleys of the countryside. Furthermore, it described a scene with the Sub-Prefect who scolded the Mayor, pointing out to him how the population did not react to the incident, urging the mayor to find weapons among the villagers. At the time, Vernazza lived more from trade than from agriculture. The wine produced in the five countries, not only in Vernazza, left the town for export to all of Europe. Consequently, closing the sea route in Vernazza, and all the Cinque Terre, when there was no railway and roads that were impractical, meant condemning them to misery.
A photo from Ar Segnù
After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna united the states of Genoa to those of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1815 Liguria became the Duchy of Genoa and was provisionally divided into three provinces with the capitals Savona, Genoa and Spezia. Liguria became the division of Genoa and is organized in the Provinces of: Genoa, Albenga, Bobbio, Chiavari, Levante, Novi, Savona. The three municipalities of the Cinque Terre were maintained: Monterosso, Vernazza and Riomaggiore, which were assigned to the Province of the Levant based in Spezia and Sarzana. La Spezia in 1859 became the District (sub-prefecture) of the Province of Genoa and will remain so until 1923 when it will become an autonomous Province from Genoa.
In 1868 the government decided to abolish the town of Vernazza, since it was too small, it will instead end up keeping its own town by admitting Corniglia in April 1871. In 1835 the City Council rejected the aggregation in Vernazza, showing Corniglia's desire to break away from Riomaggiore. With the entry into the Piedmontese state, the negative trend of life in Vernazza is reversed, the sea became free, but the country at the time was too regressed to get out of poverty quickly. Many streets were restructured, but the sanitary and hygienic situation of the population, such as reading and writing, were lacking. In 1855 the Cholera arrived in Vernazza, Gaetano Rossi described this period:
"Borgo di antichissima origine, demolito e ricostruito sopra gli stessi suoi ruderi presenta un agglomerato di abitazioni quasi ammonticchiate le une sulle altre, lo più anguste, poco arieggiate, e che hanno accessi per vie tortuose e ristrette, prive di libera ventilazione. C'è una popolazione di circa mille abitanti, alla maggior parte dei quali falliscono i mezzi ad osservare le regole rigorose della pubblica igiene… Queste locali circostanze indussero la riprovevole abitudine del nostro popolo di trascurare pure quelle avvertenze, onde mantiensi la proprietà e pulitezza delle vie. Cosicché, ad onta degli ordini severi emanati da questo vigilantissimo Sindaco secondato dal solerte Segretario e dalla incessante vigilanza all'oggetto di verbalizzare e convenire chiunque gettasse immondezze nelle pubbliche vie, a stento ottenevasi che in esse non si gettassero le fecce emesse dai cholerosi. ...Niuna precauzione o quasi usavasi nell'interno delle case, ed avvegnachè le giovani nostre donne e i fanciulli in specie non usino calzarsi nel tempo estivo e nel temperato, vedevasi da loro calpestare a piè nudo quelle immondeze....Si vedevano togliere d'intorno ai cholerosi le biancherie ed altre coperture infettate e brutte di immondizie senza prendersi alcun pensiero di mondarsi nel cloruro le mani e né immergere in quello le robe insozzate, le quali erano di presente portate a purgare al torrente...”."
—Gaetano Rossi
A photo of the Bastion Belforte (Beè Fòrte) taken on the Doria Castle
At the time there was no sewerage, which will be done in the twentieth century, but there were few cesspools. Towards the end of the nineteenth century four fountains were built, the Mayor of the time made sure not to remove the water from the mills. From that catastrophic situation, common to almost all the smaller inhabited centers of the Ligurian coast, some of the older people today remember the last sign of "garbage in the streets" the situation of the carruggetto and the Ventegä in the mid-twentieth century and at the head of the strada del molo, in the small portico, under the niche the white sign with the words "forbidden to gross", where the bar menu is currently stored.
Vernazza was built at the mouth of the canal, a stream that never runs dry, not even in summer, when many rivers of the Riviera are completely dry. Despite the fact that this canal gave the Vernazzesi the opportunity to live, towards the middle of the 19th century the canal risked destroying the town. According to Vinzoni's map, it shows that the canal crossed the town slightly towards the east and flowed into the sea through the "galleria della Madonnina." In the last few meters, before flowing out of the "gallery", the canal made a very tight curve that slowed its flow. From the central street of the town, anyone who was on the right bank of the stream could go to the houses on the left bank with six bridges. still on the ground today, namely:
the connection between the current Via E. Vernazza and Via M. Caratino, next to the pizzeria,
the current Via Roma 20
Via Roma 36
Via Roma 64
A second photo of the current building where the Hospitale stood
Of the other two, which were before and after the hospital, no traces can be found, because the area in which they stood has been profoundly modified. When, due to heavy rains, the torrent swelled and increased its descent speed, it eroded and removed a large quantity of material from the countryside, which was deposited between the bridges. Due to the reduction in width, the water level rose, the material removed was deposited on the bottom and the level rose again, so much so that it came out of the embankments, invading the road to fall back into the riverbed after the bridge.
The street was ruined, the rooms of the houses on the ground floor flooded. When the channel was in flood with the rough sea, the damage increased even more. Then the canal, blocked by the storm, flooded the area "from the Madonnina" and mixed with the sea that entered the town from the "gallery". From here the water flowed down to the square and reached the marina. From the minutes of the City Council we learn that, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the road between the market square (the widening next to the "gallery") and the S.Marta bridge was often ruined and hundreds of costs were spent on its repair days of command. The worst disaster began in 1857.
"Le dirotte piogge avendo gonfiato straordinariamente il torrente e gli avvallamenti nei monti... avendo somministrato gran quantità di materia alle acque, convogliate le stesse per la maggior parte sino all'abitato, quivi vennero riposte nei succitati ristalli (arresti dell'acqua causati dai ponti di piccola luce, poca altezza, malcolllocati) e contemporaneamente avendo rovinato i muri di sponda, guadagnata la strada, solcata e distrutta, allagate le case, rovinate le derrate e minacciata la distruzione del paese le acque presero due diverse vie di scarico direttamente cioè in mare attraversando la piazza sul cui piano sta la Chiesa Parrocchiale, e per la breve naturale galleria, sbocco ordinario del torrente stesso."
—Municipal archive
A historical photo of what remained of the chapel of San Giovanni Battista at the time
Following the flood of 1857 it was decided to do the works strictly necessary to prevent a similar disaster from happening again in the immediate future. Today the stream follows its natural course only as far as the railway line, since between 1860 and 1874, it was made to flow into the sea via an artificial tunnel conduit. In 1874 the railway line was inaugurated to facilitate travel and to mark the end of the secular isolation, since until that date Vernazza could be reached by sea or by narrow and inaccessible paths.
Only in more recent times was the design of a state road called: "Litoranea delle Cinque Terre" implemented, which envisaged following a path about 400 meters above the sea, connecting Sestri Levante to La Spezia. The work in question, however, was never completed and stopped above Monterosso on one side and after the Manarola tunnel on the other. Vernazza and Corniglia remained unreachable by motor vehicles until the 1980s, when the Strada dei Santuari was designed, connecting them to the hamlets of Reggio and San Bernardino.
Demonstration at the Port (Mȫ) of Vernazza in the early 1970s
On September 1, 1895, the Mutual Aid and Rescue Volunteer Circle, called "Cristoforo Colombo", was founded. In the early 1900s he was joined by another volunteer group with the name of "Circolo Marinaro" having its headquarters in the club of Francesco Malagamba in Piazza G. M. Pensa, now Piazza G. Marconi. The main purpose of the association was to help the large number of seafarers and unemployed people by posting a copy of the boarding call bulletin collected daily in Genoa by a person in charge outside the headquarters.
A photo of the beach (Mainetta dâ Tagiâ) in Vernazza in 1971
According to some pastoral visits of the 16th century, the church of Santa Margherita also had a cemetery, located in the area of today's Piazza Marconi and immediately adjacent to the apses. There was no burial in this place until 1817, after which the new cemetery above the town was opened. In 1923, the area was freed from the tombs and integrated into the public square, as it is admired today.
In 1908, a series of restoration works began, most of which aimed at returning the building to its original medieval appearance. The dressed stone facings were progressively freed from the plaster, and the baroque decorative apparatus was eliminated. Between many demolitions, consolidation interventions, and some reconstructions, the works ended in 1975 and left the church a little different from what it is today.
An image of Vernazza from 1966.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there was a migratory phenomenon towards neighboring centers and above all towards the capital of La Spezia due to the offer of work that had been created thanks to the construction of the naval military arsenal of the capital. From 1973 to 31 December 2008 Vernazza was part of the mountain community of the Riviera Spezzina. In 1997, together with Porto Venere and the islands of the Gulf of Poets: Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto, the Cinque Terre were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In 1999 Vernazza, together with the rest of the Cinque Terre, were included in the 5 Terre National Park. On 25 October 2011 Vernazza suffered a terrible and violent flood, which occurred following a heavy precipitation that poured 542 mm of rain in six hours.
Symbols
The first coat of arms of Vernazza.
The coat of arms of Vernazza prior to the current one was presented with the ancile on a blue field, loaded with three golden bands with a crescent moon arc. Crown in a circle of wall surmounted by 5 merlons and 8 around silver, joined by low walls of the same, bordered by decussed branches of laurel oak. This classic and warrior weapon is the right weapon of the Vernazzesi, testified by their courage, daring and warrior resourcefulness. The blue field has the meaning of loyalty, but which also represents the firmament, the air and the water, the sky, from which the first auspices were taken in occupying the lands, therefore received from God, the noblest of heraldic colors.
The current coat of arms of Vernazza.
The three bands have a triple meaning, in them there is the representation of the leather belt that hung from the right shoulder to the left side where the sword was attached, it also has the meaning of the three states of Being, namely: body, soul and spirit. It has the meaning of dedication, ardor, faith, nobility, charity, temperance, glory, in essence, the three virtues of the Roman soldier-legionary: obedience, duty, fidelity; which in the Middle Ages were defined in honor, courage and fidelity. Gold is the color of the Empire while the crescent of the moon: it is the symbol of Luni-Luna and for friendship, kindness, sincerity, harmony typical of the silver color. The oak, on the other hand, has the representation of the conspicuous nobility, recognized merit, strong and warrior spirit, ancient dominion. Laurel represents peace and victory, good fame, glory, benevolence; fearlessness, virtue.
After the decree in art. 5 which dictates the technical characteristics of the emblems: the coat of arms consists of a shield and, in the case of provinces and municipalities awarded as cities, and municipalities, by a crown placed above the shield itself. In addition to being an element of completeness of the emblem, the crown indicates with its shape, the degree of membership of the Body, in fact after this decree the Municipalities must use a shield called "modern Samnite" and a silver-colored crown with nine visible towers. Following this legislation, the Municipality of Vernazza has taken on a new coat of arms, also represented by a tricolor band that binds the laurel to each other.
Main sights
An image of the Church of Santa Margherita d'Antiochia
Vernazzese, like the rest of the dialects of the far-east coast, is not presented in a homogeneous way, together with other neighboring dialects. This outlines the fact that for example the Vernazzese is presented in a different way from a neighboring dialect to the country, such as Cornigliese is distinct from Vernazzese, such as Manarolese or La Spezia. We can therefore define two types of language: the Lunigiana language and the Ligurian ones, the latter being understood as the typical Genoese language.
The dialects of the Cinque Terre are divided into two blocks: the first includes Riomaggiore, Manarola and Corniglia, the second the only town of Monterosso with the Vernazza dialect acting as a hinge between the two blocks. Following, beyond the Cinque Terre, at a phonetic level, all the coastal towns such as: Levanto, Bonassola, Framura and Deiva Marina differ from the standard Genoese type only for some outcomes, while they still have elements of the Lunigiano substratum at the lexical level.
A photo of Vernazza under the snow in 1985
The Vernazzese dialect is presented as a Gallo-Italian dialect and more precisely a Ligurian dialect of the Genoese type, with a series of elements of transition towards the Lunigiane dialects, to be considered the latter, to all intents and purposes, as substratum, while the Cornigliese dialect approaches mostly to the La Spezia-Lunigiano-type speeches, even though they already present typically Ligurian-Genoese outcomes. The dialect of San Bernardino is very similar to that of Corniglia, while the variants spoken on the Reggio coast have more distinctly Valdivarese colors, which refer, in this case, to the dialects of Pignone.
Proverbs
Proverbs, maxims, and sayings are the heritage of all the civilizations that preceded us. They are linked to the territory, the seasons, and agriculture and are part of popular wisdom.
A batuella de Venerdì Santu.
A regina cunsulata a s'è cotta na pumata na pumata ben cundia a regina cunsulia.
Aia ar munte - piggia a sappa e vatte a scunde. Aia de mà - piggia a sappa e va' a sapà.
Aia fatta a pan - se nu cioeuve ancoeu cioeuve duman.
Aia russa - o che cioeuve o che buffa.
Ancoeu l'è ar primu d'avrì - tütte e carogne i se fan curì.
Ar primu trun de marsu - a biscia a sciurte d'in tu tarsu.
Ar tempu l'è cummu ar cù - u fa quellu cu voeu lu.
Bin, bun, ban stuccafisce e baccalà a pulenta cumudaa bin, bun, ban. Boga bughina ar gattu u va in cuxina gi ommi a guera e donne suttu tera.
Buntempu fattu de notte u nu düa.
Carlevà l'è mortu - imbriègu cummu in porcu u l'ha fattu testamentu - in ta ciappa der cunventu.
Chi n' ha poghi u n'ha assee.
Chi nu piscia in compagnia l'è in ladru o na spia.
Chi s'amiggia se piggia.
Chi và a gnüa de Settembre - in ta cascia se ghe destende. Ciove e lüxe ar su - tütte e strie i fan l'amu.
Cummu a va a vitta? Mezza storta, mezza dritta.
Cun i pesci e i limun in ta panea - t'inviti to frè ven finna toeu sea.
Da San Martin na rustia e in gottu de vin.
E da fame, da peste, da guèra, da carestia l'è mortu a l'impruvisu.
E palanche de n'avarun i van in bucca a in leccardun.
Latte e vin u fa sunà ar campanin.
Maia ar gattu u te mia. U te mia suttu a gunella u te mangia a mortadella.
Marsu cagarsu figgiu d'en cagau - da na parte ghe cioeuve da l'altra ghe lüxe ar su.
Minoeu trei cù - sacchetta e beretta.
Na gagina rantegusa - cun a lengua velenusa.
Na vota gh'èa n'umettu cu cagava in tu stecchettu. Stecchettu u l'ea senza pünta u cagava in tà strapünta. A strapünta a l'ea senza lana u cagava in ta campana. A campana a l'ea senza cioccu u cagava in tu maloccu. Ar maloccu u l'è scipau e l'umettu u gh'è restau.
Nu gh'è mazu ne mazun pe levate ar felisun.
Pe in püntu San Martin u l'ha persu l'aze.
Quattro die in tu cù cummu Berù.
Re de marmutta u fa cantà a ciucca - ciucca ciucun re de marmuttun.
Santa Cataina chi si i fa si ninna.
Scialla, scialla che ven ar papà. Scialla, scialla cu purtià na cosa pa soeu fante bella.
Sghinda ninnu che ter boeuttu nu stà sghindà che passa ar pan.
Tognu berodu - sausisse senza sodu - pelli de mù - trei causi in tu cù.
Tramontana - tütti a Chissuana.
Tramontana scüa - trei giurni a düa.
Ventu de mà - a Chissuana nu steghe a andà.
Vogia de travagià sautime adossu travagia te padrun che me nu possu.
Nicknames
An image of Mainetta dâ Tagiâ covered in snow
The nicknames that have always accompanied the existence of the population of small towns are full of indications that help to better understand the history and the language of times near and far. Exploited sparingly by the Vernazzesi, the nickname was often the result of the impromptu inventions of children intent on consuming their free time in board games, to which, within their group, fantasy as well as irony and imagination could suggest an adjective, a colorful phrase to accompany the friend's name to make it easier to identify.
When, on the other hand, the nicknames were born from the need to distinguish the members of a family or a group of relatives, from other groups and from other families who had the same surname, children's games were replaced by the inventions of adults. They could be the sign of a trade, they could indicate a physical characteristic, typical of that particular group, they could be the habit of using the same name within the family, they could come from a character or physical particularity from the surname, from the place in one was born or lived, or simply by the need to distinguish in some way people with the same first name.
An ancient photo of Vernazza in 1908
Over the years, the use of the nickname has ceased to be a necessity and has taken on the characteristics of the game, sometimes a bad pastime that aims to highlight physical defects, verbal imperfections, incorrect ways of dealing with the regulars of the square. Immediately after the war, a word considered out of place was enough, a strange habit, a habit, it was enough to repeat a concept more than once and immediately an adjective, a name, an epithet was born that aroused fun and that, often was shouted in a chorus of voices until the victim hinted at a reaction of anger. Over time, however, even the ugliest names, the most uncomfortable nicknames, ended up transforming and taking on a different light. They have become irreplaceable and today they are one, inseparable with the person who wears them.
Nickname list
Tumelin
Punin
Culin
Scupelin
Budin
Pisulin
Gin
Ciùmin
Nasin
Netin
Dantin
Sciampin
Stalin
Tanin
Lenin
Troski
Stravinski
Zizi
Piri
Pali
Rorro
Madido
Babano
Biancamano
Badò
Perciò
Marcello
Marziano
Bossolo
Brao
Balena
Manena
Muena
Vulodia
Balò
Brilla stecchi
Lambicchi
Baffi russi
Vachelli
Farinelli
Biffi
Cicci
Ricci
Titti
Tetto
Tatto
Patto
Rabin
Giallo
Lolo
Pillo
Cino
Fagiolino
Mignolino
Ueciun
Tritolu
Torciu
Tasciu
Pistacciu
Ù Pilitu
Dentexiu
Nasellu
Pimpinella
Pettenella
Pinocchio
Tendina
Testina
Ceamina
Rusina
Ciungiana
Bogo
Oso
Medo
Lulu
Sabu
Bacu
Manzu
Furfau
Occi de gattu
Mario Maciu
Meccanicu
Bixiu
Busettu
Berù
Preu
Ninnu
Plüffu
Ursu
Marì
Cegi
Reghi
Dodi
Doli
Pasquini
Zaccagnini
Baccaletti
Zanetti
Faxiuella
E la Madona
Piffera
Enà
Mira
Bügna
Tracciante
Pursemme
Matalèn
Telun
Buccaun
Bissun
Girdun
Dentun
Matasun
Sacun
Maran
Don
Fadiga
Bistecca
Taccalite
Tetè
Bè
Cè
Felle
Tabale
Duse
Piva
Pippa
Pala
Capotta
Parrucca
Peccia
Zirletta
Scianchetta
Boccia
Roccia
Nocia
Turacca
Zucca
Sena
Cicoia
Cardaia
Scarella
Cilla
Grillo
Gallu
Menanca
Bageougia
Family name
A photo of Vernazza
Some time ago, intertwining between villagers with only a few surnames continued, mixing to the point that marriages between cousins were not uncommon. It therefore occurred that people with the same surname, at times, for personal reasons, also randomly and involuntarily bore the same name, and hence the difficulty also for the villager himself when referring, for example, to someone like "Antonio Basso ", so as not to confuse it with other possible namesakes in the country.
To simplify things quickly and effectively, the people of Vernazza managed to divide the inhabitants by gradually creating, in everyday life, various nicknames or nicknames in dialect and otherwise (arising from deeds, specificity of the work carried out, circumstances, or events), which referred to certain founder villagers, who were then taken as a reference for the future identification of the "household" to which they belonged.
With this final methodology, when we wanted to indicate with absolute precision so and so, the individual's first name was pronounced followed by the "house". For the villagers, this method has worked over time, becoming an automatism. Nowadays, this custom has almost been lost; it is still in force among people of a certain age, still raised with that method of distinction.
Family name list
Bacin
Baffin
Balain
Benedin
Beniamin
Beppinin
Balìn
Cuntin
Curagin
Feipin
Giambin
Lencin
Lümin
Paemin
Patatin
Sansunin
Scupelin
Tanin
Trumbanin
Vitturin
Fatu
Furmigua
Luvi
Cuxi
Negri
Sangirolla
Balunettu
Bambinettu
Faichettu
Giuliottu
Meghettu
Muettu
Rattu
Tonu
Paciognu
Catognu
Pagnu
Ghigu
Rissu
Cagnassu
Sgerbu
Scogiu
Callau
Sesau
Baillu
Mudellu
Sciscioa
Minoeu
Ciübeu
Funtanella
Bona
Giona
Peubona
Mantogna
Pretogna
Dettaninna
Minora
Lengera
Lasà
Ferà
Murtà
Battonga
Pagialünga
Cacetta
Lisetta
Gioia
Boccia
Düca
Spada
Lexiua
Lagalla
Garulla
Cammella
Bacichella
Caudeun
Menun
Pedun
Pipun
Paun
Zan
Burian
Pascian
Gianfran
Pelli
Grifè
Stelle
Bidesce
Chitarre
Pidi
Pente
Lante
Carlè
Zuanè
Macallè
Baranè
Giacumè
Mucciu
Muciacciu
Culture
Music by vernazzesi
Piva
Scoggi (Live) - 2004
Cover of the album Scoggi (Live) - 2004 by Piva
Il sindaco di Vernazza presenta Piva (Live)
E stagiùn (Live)
A lebecciâ (Live)
Canta Piva ca te passa (Live)
Lo straniero (Live)
Testo tratto dal giornale "Il passato definito" (Live)
Scoggi (Live)
Chitarre napoletane (Live)
I vecci (Live)
A rutunda delle rose (Live)
Flamenco (Live)
Libertango (Live)
E passanti (Live)
A raffa (Live)
Ciove Palanche - 2006
Cover of the album Ciove Palanche - 2006 by Piva
Ciove Palanche
À Chitàra
A Scà D'er Pastenè
Ar Pesciucàn D'er Barba Candidu
Bertu D'er Cice
Mundu
Ma chî gh'è ar mâ (L'album dell'alluvione) - 2014
Cover of the album Ma chî gh'è ar mâ (L'album dell'alluvione) - 2014 by Piva
Ma chî gh'è ar mâ
Nu l'è sempre cuscì
E lê ca parla lê ca fumma
Ciove palanche
Asinara "Brao"
La casa in riva al mare
Canta
De mattinn-a
Piva canta le Cinque Terre - 2014
Cover of the album Piva canta le Cinque Terre - 2014 by Piva
«E quella faccia di là da lui più che l’altre trapunta ebbe la Santa Chiesa in le sue braccia: dal Torso fu, e purga per digiuno l’anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia». (Purgatorio Canto XXIV,20)
«Tra Lerice e Turbìa la più diserta, la più rotta ruina è una scala, verso di quella, agevole e aperta.» (Purgatorio Canto III,49)
«Da qui i vigneti illuminati dall'occhio benefico del sole e dilettissimi a Bacco si affacciano su Monte Rosso e sui gioghi di Corniglia, ovunque celebrati per il dolce vino».
«Per la qual cosa, egli dice, vini di tal natura di sincerissima sostanza gli sperimentiamo forti più tanto che soavi, con insigne odore e limpidi come aureo splendore vezzosamente risplendere nei calici. Bevanda di grandissimo nutrimento specialmente al vecchi, utilissima ai sani ed agli infermicci»
«E veggendosi in grande stato, per onore di sé e per vaghezza di porre nel suo alcuno nobile vino straniero, pensò trovare modo di far venire magliuoli da Porto Venere della vernaccia di Corniglia. E per alcuno amico fece scrivere a un messer Niccoloso Manieri da Porto Venere che quelli magliuoli dovesse mandare. E aúto buona risposta, trovandosi alcuna volta con messer lo piovano in quella villa suo vicino, dicea come avea trovato modo d'avere de' magliuoli della vernaccia di Corniglia, e che gli aspettava d'ora in ora».
«Sorgono sulla scogliera Cinque Terre, quasi ad egual distanza tra loro che sono Monterosso, Vulnezia, ora chiamata volgarmente Vernazza, Cornelia, Manarola e Riomaggiore (...) cosa che invero fa meraviglia vedere monti così erti e scoscesi, che perfino gli uccelli stentano a trasvolarli, petrosi e aridi da rassomigliare piuttosto a quelli dell'edera e della vite. Di qui vien fuori quel vino che approntiamo per le mense dei re...».
«Quanto sia dunque di somma importanza per i possidenti di un tal luogo il restituire l'antico suo nome a questi vini, non v'è, io credo, chi ne possa dubitare. E se il vino Amabile delle Cinque Terre che andava in Francia ed in Inghilterra, è nominato fra i migliori vini d'Italia sino a tempi del Boccacio che lo specifica chiaramente Vino Vernaccia di Corniglia, per non confonderlo col Vernaccia toscano, riprendesse il suo credito, quale utile non ne risulterebbe per questa popolazione?»
«Paesaggio roccioso e austero simile ai più forti di Calabria, asilo di pescatori e di contadini viventi a frusto a frusto in un lembo di spiaggia che in certi tratti va sempre più assottigliandosi, nuda e solenne cornice di una delle più primitive d’Italia. Monterosso; Vernazza e Corniglia, nidi di falchi e di gabbiani, Manarola e Riomaggiore sono, procedendo da Ponente a levante, i nomi dei pochi paesi, o frazioni di paese, così asseragliati tra le rupi e il mare».
«L'autore trascorse una trentina di estati nelle Cinque Terre e il primo romanzo della sua Trilogia di Pianariva, Il corpo della ragassa, è datato "Monterosso al Mare"».
An image of Sapienza city inspired by Vernazza and taken from the video game "Hitman"
In the video game called: “Hitman” from 2016 features a fictional city called “Sapienza” which is heavily influenced by Vernazza, Iconic sites such as the Santa Marta Chapel and the Doria Castle are included within the city.
The 2015 video game "Just Cause 3" features a fictional town called "Manaea" based on Vernazza.
Traditional sports
An image of Manaea city inspired by Vernazza and taken from the video game "Just Cause 3"
Soccer
Swim
Boating
Water polo
Weight competition
Throwing slippers
Typical dishes
An image of the Tiàn Vernazza a typical local dish
Tiàn Vernazza
Typical wines
Sciacchetrà
Vines
A photo of a local wine
Albarola
Bosco
Vermentino
Piccabon
Razzuola
Roccese
Ruspara
Sesagra
Frappelà
Barbarossa
Pollora
Rossara
Ruin
Events
Fireworks during Santa Margherita Day
Patron of Santa Margherita
Weekly market
Pirate Festival
Media
Radio
Radio Tofa
Economy
A historical photo with some workers working during the construction of the current railway station in Vernazza
The main economic resources of the Vernazza area are aimed at agricultural activities and tourism. In the agricultural field, the cultivation of olive trees, fruit trees (especially lemons) and above all the vine with a fair production of local wines and the Cinque Terre territory is valuable.
The link that unites the village of Vernazza with Vernaccia wine has been established. In fact, this wine was already well appreciated in the Middle Ages and is mentioned several times by Boccaccio also in relation to the village of Corniglia. The production of wine was only or specifically Ligurian therefore the etymology of the word itself is from Vernaccia, today Vernazza. Moreover, since the village is mentioned in historical documents centuries before the wine itself, the contrary hypothesis that the village took its name from the wine it exported is less credible.
Business
An ancient photo of Vernazza inside the port
According to some sources, it is between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries that the terracing dedicated to the cultivation of the vine becomes the dominant landscape element of Vernazza. The motivation for such an enterprise could only be justified by a stable and profitable demand from the wine market: only a set of favorable commercial circumstances repaid the effort undertaken and could make a large production of wine convenient, with the specific purpose of marketing it.
Tourism
An ancient photo during the construction of the current railway station in Vernazza
According to oral sources, it is between the 60s and 70s of the 1900s that the first tourists to visit the Cinque Terre arrived, following the creation of the Cinque Terre National Park, Vernazza enters a tourism system that changes the fate of agriculture. and to the mental system of work of the Vernazzesi. The advent of greater tourism has created a business centered on hotel and restaurant systems, abandoning much of the work in the fields, decreasing the creation of wine and subsequently the rest of the agricultural system that has always characterized Vernazza.
Structures
Restaurants
Antica osteria il Baretto
Ristorante Baia Saracena
Ristorante Incadasè da Piva
Ristorante Belforte
Ristorante il Castello
Ristorante Bar la Torre
Ristorante Gianni Franzi
Trattoria da Sandro
Ristorante Pizzeria Vulnetia
Ristorante Gambero Rosso
Ristorante Taverna del Capitano
Il Pirata delle Cinque terre
Bar
Ananasso Bar
Blue Marlin Cafe
Burgus
Pizzerias
Pizzeria Fratelli Basso
Pizzeria Lercari Ercole
Pizzeria da Ercole
Wine bars
Agave Di Heidenreich Michael
La Bottega
Enoteca Sciacchetra'
La Cantina del Molo di Basso Alberto
Vineria Santa Marta
Ice cream parlors
Gelateria Vernazza
Gelateria il porticciolo
Gelateria Stalìn
Gelato Amore Mio
Guest house
Taverna del Capitano Rooms
Cadè Ventu
Vernazza2010 Rooms
Pippo a Vernazza Rooms
Camere Nicolina
Affittacamere i rosmarini
A Cà Da Nonna Di Callo Luca
Affittacamere Graziella
Rina Rooms
Camere Fontanavecchia
Tonino Basso camere
Ludovica Flat
Francamaria Rooms
Camere Toni
Affittacamere PZ
Affittacamere Rollando
Guesthouse Rollando
Pellegrino Rooms
Lisetta Rooms
Affittacamere Elisabetta
Ca Du Grifun
Enrica Barrani Room
Luvegu Sciuiu Apartment
Giuli camera vista mare
Camere Anna
La Marina
Casa Catò
Camere Carlo
Camere Giuliano basso
Santa Marta Rooms
Alessandro Carro Affittacamere
Solemagia
Chiara Rooms
La Polena
Rissu Nice Studio
Mada Charm
Affittacamere Benedetta e Isabelle
La Ripa
San Francesco Rooms
The Terrace
Vernazza Vacation
Economy Rooms
A cà di Bafirussi
Macaia Room
La Nave
La Quiete Accesa
Carugio Rooms
I Limoni di Vernazza
Vernazza Guest House
Hotel Gianni Franzi
Pensione Sorriso
Albergo Barbara
Bella Vernazza
Vernazza Holidays
L' Eremo B&B
La Locanda da Valeria
Manuela Rooms
Vernazza Sea View
Camere La Torre
La Malà
Muin a Ventu Historical Tower
Shops
Kalos Boutique
Il Talismano
Katrina Design Italiano Abbigliamento
Vernazza Sport
Gocce di Byron
Scorza Rosanna
Malagamba Luciana
Phone Home S.N.C. Di Basso Isabella & C.
Greco Antonio
Coop Consumo Cinque Terre Societa' Cooperativa
Panificio da Gino
Daneri Angelo
La Madonnina Di Usai Giuseppe & C. Snc
Other facilities
Farmacia Monti
Infrastructure and transport
Roads
A road intended for the transit of vehicles in the Pavì location
The territory of Vernazza is crossed by the provincial road 61, which joins the provincial road 51 to the north; the latter connects the Vernazzese village with the municipalities of Monterosso al Mare, to the west, and Riomaggiore to the east, by road. Furthermore, the road that can be traveled by car allows you to go towards the Sanctuary of Reggio and San Bernardino, which by continuing along the latter road you can get to Prevo and then to Corniglia. The car park is located on the provincial road number 51 about 1 km from the town of Vernazza.
Railways
A photo of the previous Vernazza train station
The municipality of Vernazza has a railway station that runs along the Genoa-Pisa railway line.
Urban mobility
Within the municipal area there is a local public transport service managed by the ATC which guarantees daily bus connections. The transport is organized to transport schoolchildren to school in Vernazza from the various locations, it also transports tourists to the Sanctuaries of Reggio and San Bernardino.
Embarkation
A photo of a boat landing in Ventegâ
Vernazza has a port, which daily dock the boats that can go between the hamlets of Levanto and Portovenere.
Taxi service
If necessary, the taxi service can be used when called from Monterosso or La Spezia, which with a modest amount allows you to go to other lands and neighboring areas.
Boat Tour Service
A photo taken during a tour with a rented boat in the Vernazza pier
In the port of Vernazza, it is possible to find agencies capable of taking tourists on their own boats on a guided tour of the 5 Terre and the surrounding areas:
Route Cinqueterre Boat Tours Vernazza
Nord Est Vernazza Boat Tour
Sailing5Terre
Mare Di Vino Tours
Boat rental service
A photo of the typical Ligurian gozzo boats
Inside the town's port, it is possible to rent gozzi, boats typical of the Ligurian area:
Route Cinqueterre Boat Tours Vernazza
Nord Est Vernazza Boat Tour
Administration
Vernazza is part of the Union of Cinque Terre-Riviera municipalities. In 1993 the direct election of the mayor was introduced with Law no.81 of 25 March 1993. Elected mayors and political membership lists:
Gerolamo Leonardini-Democrazia Cristiana (May 26, 1985 - May 18, 1990)
Marco Fenelli-Partito Democratico della Sinistra (May 18, 1990 - April 24, 1995)
Marco Fenelli-lista civica di centro-sinistra (April 24, 1995 - June 14, 1999)
Gerolamo Leonardini-lista civica di centro-sinistra (June 14, 1999 - June 14, 2004)
Gerolamo Leonardini-lista civica di centro-sinistra (June 14, 2004 - June 8, 2009)
Vincenzo Resasco-Partito Democratico (8 June 2009 - 26 May 2014)
Vincenzo Resasco-Insieme per noi tutti-lista civica di centro-sinistra (12 June 2014 - 27 May 2019)
Francesco Villa-Insieme-lista civica di centro-destra (May 27, 2019 - in office)
Legends
It is said through oral sources that once the inhabitants of Vernazza had heard that the inhabitants of Riomaggiore wanted to reach the moon to see how it was made. Initially the Vernazzesi took this information as a joke, but in a short time they took it as a personal challenge. After so much thinking about one, a brilliant idea came to him: since such a long staircase could not be found anywhere, he thought that the best thing was to try it with barrels, all together to get to touch the moon. So they began to go around the town and collect what they found: vats, barrels, large and small casks. Once all the hills were planted with vines and each family kept their beautiful barrels in their home cellar which in September were filled with sparkling must. Therefore it was not difficult to collect many, the first ones took them to the town square: then, as the others arrived, they piled them in the doors of the houses and in the alleys. So one fine morning they started the business. First they brought the larger vats and arranged them neatly in the center of the square; then as they went up, they placed the smaller and lighter barrels on top, making sure that they were well placed against each other. The enterprise went on until the evening of the third day, so it seemed that they had succeeded in their enterprise, since the moon was nearby. The next morning, very carefully, they picked up the few barrels that were missing: the first, the second, the third. Fixed the last one, the one who was on top and who was directing the whole operation at that point screamed that there was only one barrel missing. They searched everywhere but they had used every barrel in circulation, so suddenly one had a brilliant idea: since only one was missing, you could remove the one at the bottom and put it on top. The idea was approved instantly and everyone immediately ran to get some big poles to shore up the tower of barrels and be able to parade the first one. Eventually they succeeded, but at that very moment the tower of barrels collapsed with a great crash, leaving everyone with an inch of their nose.
Another local legend tells that once the dome of the bell tower of Santa Margherita was all covered with grass. In order not to dry out all that grass, the villagers decided to use a cow to eat it. But when it was time to get it up on the bell tower, problems arose, as it was too big and could not pass through the door. They tried to pull it, they tried to push it, but nothing to do: the door was just not going through. Then it occurred to one of them to take a rope to put it around his neck. When the beast was well tied up those from above, very carefully, slowly began to pull it up. The cow, poor thing, strangled herself, rolled her eyes and stuck out a palm of her tongue, those from underneath all happy shouting: "Look how the smart girl laughs, now that she begins to see the grass!".
According to some oral sources there is talk of a possible way that connects the Maemuna cave with the cemetery. This route is said to have been used to escape from raids, exploited as a quick link to the sea and perhaps also used during the Second World War with the arrival of the Germans.
Another legend would be linked to the female figure of a young woman called Maimuna (Maemuna), who hid in a cave to escape the Saracens without, however, finding her way out. According to word of mouth at the time, from that moment on, the girl tried to capture passing sailors and pirates, luring them into the cave with her voice. A lament that seems to still be heard today, as far away as Vernazza, during stormy nights.
According to another legend, one day along the coast of the town a box containing the bones of a finger of Santa Margherita was found in the sea. Lost during a storm, the relic reappeared again in 1318 in that same place: it was then decided that the church dedicated to the patron saint would rise on the rock in front of the sea. Remodeled and enlarged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, today it is partially visible in its original structure after the restorations in the second half of the 1900s.
Trivia
Some time ago Vernazza was called: "the little Venice" because of the canal that passed open in the main street, thus dividing the town and giving the villagers the opportunity to cross over to the other side through various bridges.
Bibliography
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