A Book of the Riviera

by S. Baring-Gould

The arms of the town are curious: argent, a tower out of which rises a king crowned and wearing garments red and green.

A favourite excursion from Alassio is to the Arco Romano, a Roman arch, through which a lovely peep of the sea is obtained. To the east appears the curious isle of Gallinaria, shaped like a snail, with the ruins of a Benedictine monastery on it. In 358, in the midst of the war against the Allemanni, when the Emperor Julian was at Worms, Martin, who was in the army, and a tribune, asked to be released from military duty. Julian was indignant. A battle was imminent, and he scornfully refused the petition, and charged Martin with cowardice. The young tribune replied, “Put me in the forefront of the army, without weapons or armour, and prove if I be what you say.”

However, the Allemanni asked for peace, it was granted, thereupon Martin obtained his dismissal. He then went to Poitiers and placed himself under the teaching of S. Hilary. Then he departed to visit his parents in Pannonia. As he crossed the Alps he was attacked by robbers and plundered of all he had. On reaching his native city of Sabaria, Martin succeeded in converting his mother to Christ, but his father persisted in his paganism. Then he returned to Italy, and after tarrying awhile at Milan, where he was vexed by the Arians, he took refuge on this islet of Gallinaria. There he lived on roots, and nearly poisoned himself by accidentally eating the hellebore, attracted by its dark green leaves and pale flowers. Providentially the spasms caused by the poison came on so rapidly as to check him from eating enough to kill him; but he suffered great pain, and lay at death’s door. A cave is shown in the island which S. Martin is traditionally held to have inhabited. After some sojourn on Gallinaria, Martin left it and went back to Poitiers.

To visit the curious old mountain village of Andora, one must leave the train at Laigueglia, before it rushes into the tunnel pierced through the spur of rock on which Andora stands. The church dedicated to SS. Philip and James is in Lombardic Gothic of the fourteenth century, and is one of the most interesting monuments of the style in Liguria. Above the high altar is a crucifix of carved wood, the figure of natural size, believed to be still earlier than the church, which dates from 1341.

Adjoining the church is a tower with swallow-tail battlements, that belonged to the old castle, but has now been united to the church. There are also at Andora the ruins of a feudal castle, the Parasio, the residence of the Podesta till 1797. There are also remains of a Roman aqueduct and a Roman bridge over the river, still in good condition.

Oneglia was the birthplace of Andrew Doria, the great admiral. It is an ugly town; the prison is in the shape of a cross, with a huge lantern at the junction of the arms lighted through cockney Gothic windows.

The Dorias, Fieschi, Grimaldi, and Spinolas were the four principal families of Genoa. Simone Doria, who lived in 1270, was a Troubadour, and he once had a dispute with Lanfranc Cigala as to which was preferable, to deserve the favour of a lady or to possess it. Doria maintained the latter proposition. “I did once suppose,” said Lanfranc, “that merit carried a lady’s favour, I now know that impudence gains it. Doria has taught me that.”

Andrew Doria was born at Oneglia in 1468. He was son of Andrew Coeva, of the Dorias, that were Princes of Oneglia, but as this Andrew represented a junior branch, he came into but a small slice of the inheritance, and, dying early, his widow, mother of the great Andrew, thought it well to get as the protector of her boy Dominico Doria, belonging to the elder branch, and this she obtained by ceding to him the rights in Oneglia that had belonged to her husband. Dominico was then captain of the guards to Pope Innocent VIII., and he put the young Andrew in his company. Andrew forged ahead, and became a naval captain of great importance. He had no scruples, and he passed from side to side, as best conduced to his interests. At one time he fought for Francis I., and then he went over to the service of Charles V. When these rivals met at Aigues Mortes, Francis I. mounted the galley of the great admiral, and noticed a bronze cannon with on it the Arms of France. He looked hard at Doria, who said, “This gun is of excellent metal.” “I cast better cannons now,” remarked the King, meaning that he offered better pay than formerly.

“The Emperor’s metal is good enough for me,” retorted Doria. Francis turned to the Emperor and said, “You made a good catch when you netted Doria. Mind you keep him.”

Against the judgment of Doria Charles V. undertook his disastrous expedition against Algiers in 1541. In 1539 Doria, with the Imperial fleet, that of Venice, and that of the Pope, lighted on the very inferior Turkish fleet under Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa, off Previsa. The Christian strength was really overwhelming. Eighty Venetians, thirty-six Papal and thirty Spanish galleys, together with fifty sailing galleons, made up the formidable total of nearly two hundred ships of war, and they carried scarcely less than 60,000 men and 2,500 guns. Doria was in chief command, Capello and Grimano led the Venetian and Roman contingents. On September 25th the allied fleets appeared off the Gulf. Barbarossa had 122 ships of war.