Boccadasse

At the eastern end of Genoa's seafront, pastel houses crowd around a pebble cove where painted fishing boats rest on the sand. Boccadasse retains the character of a fishing village within the city.

Why it matters

Boccadasse preserves Genoa's maritime identity in its coloured houses, wooden gozzi boats and small beach, between Corso Italia and Capo Santa Chiara.

Boccadasse remains an inhabited neighbourhood. Its character combines domestic buildings, a nineteenth-century chapel and the historic cove beside the twentieth-century promenade.

What to notice

The name Boccadasse is traditionally linked to bocca d'asino, or "donkey's mouth", after the shape of the bay seen from above. The church of Sant'Antonio stands on the rocky point, its yellow-and-white facade facing the water; its interior contains ex-votos left by seafaring families. Behind the church, Belvedere Edoardo Firpo is a small square overlooking the cove. Steep Ligurian lanes, or creuze, climb Capo Santa Chiara towards villas and pines and continue toward Vernazzola. Boccadasse marks the eastern end of Corso Italia, the early twentieth-century seaside promenade.

Context and history

Local tradition traces the settlement to around the year 1000, when Spanish fishermen sheltered in the cove during a storm and remained; the surname Dodero is said to descend from their captain. The village grew as an autonomous fishing community on the Albaro coastline before being absorbed into expanding Genoa.

The twentieth century changed Boccadasse's setting more than its core. Corso Italia, laid out in the early 1900s, made the village the eastern terminus of Genoa's passeggiata. Genoese song adopted the quarter as shorthand for sea-lit intimacy; a local anecdote links it to the cat in Gino Paoli's "Il cielo in una stanza". Renzo Piano's eastern waterfront project extended the city's maritime public realm.