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 Evidence
of the town’s
Roman origins exists, provided by some archaeological finds
made in the
area, but documented events
concerning Santa Margherita date from the medieval period. After
becoming a fief of the Fieschi family in the 13th century it
came under Genoese control and remained so until the end of the
eighteenth century. On 18 July 1798, the village was still
divided into two independent small villages separated by the
hill: Corte, located in front of the harbour area and Pescino,
on the side of the parish church facing the sea along Ghiaia
beach. On that day, the Municipalists, who controlled the Canton
of Santa Margherita and Canton of San Giacomo, two cantons that
were often bitter rivals, took up office in Pescino.
 With
an imperial decree on 22 December 1812, Napoleon finally united
Santa Margherita and San Giacomo into a single borough that bore
his august name: Porto Napoleone. After the fall of the empire,
however, the governor took office in Genoa and the individual
boroughs were entrusted to provisional administrations.
In 1818, following the governor’s wishes, the town of Santa
Margherita di Rapallo emerged, guided by a Council of Elders,
led by Gerolamo Costaguta.
Forty-five years later, in 1863, Victor Emanuel II finally
decreed the name Santa Margherita Ligure.
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 Portofino |
The harbour of the dolphins
 Phoenicians,
Greeks or Romans? It is not certain to which of the three
peoples the establishment of Portofino should be attributed,
but perhaps the events of the little village go back even
further, as it would be difficult to deny the existence of
human settlements from protohistoric times in such a
favourable natural shelter from the winds and sea. There is
also a margin of doubt concerning the origin of the name,
but most people support the origin Portus Delphini, the
harbour of the dolphins, the version put forward by Pliny in
the third book of the Naturalis Historia. The Itinerarium
Maritimum, a navigation manual of the third century AD, also
refers to Portus Delphini among the Ligurian harbours,
alongside Genoa, Vado, Albenga and Porto Maurizio.
In the Early Middle Ages, Portofino, having become a colony
at the time of Rome’s domination, ended up under the
jurisdiction of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. In
986 it was given by Adelaide, Empress and Queen of Italy, to
the Cassinese Benedictine order of San Fruttuoso which, in
1171, transferred it to the consuls of Rapallo for the sum
of 170 Genoese lire. After French domination, it passed to
the Florentines and then, in 1425, was occupied by Tommaso
Campo Fregoso. Following a long string of disputes, in
which the Fieschis, Sforzas and Dorias were protagonists,
the village was permanently acquired by the Republic of
Genoa, to whose events its history in the period leading up
to 1814 is linked. In 1815, together with the Republic of
Genoa, the “pearl of the world” was assigned to the Kingdom
of Sardinia by the Congress of Vienna.
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Attrazioni
Turistiche
