Fortezza del Priamar

Built by Genoa to control Savona, the Priamar fortress occupies a rocky spur above the port. Its vast bastions enclose a layered complex that includes civic museums, a memorial to Giuseppe Mazzini and views across the Ligurian coast.

Why it matters

Between 1542 and 1544 the Republic of Genoa threw up the Priamar to control the city it had just subdued, levelling one of medieval Savona's most important quarters to do it. The official city portal lists what disappeared under the bastions: the cathedral of Santa Maria di Castello, the bishop's palace, the Dominican convent, ten confraternity oratories and the three city hospitals. The museum system's page adds the engineer's name for the bastioned front, the Lombard Giovanni Maria Olgiati. The fortress later served as a prison, held Giuseppe Mazzini, and after years of abandonment was restored as a cultural complex.

What to notice

The San Giorgio bridge, built in 1774–75, frames the sixteenth-century bastioned front, with the Baluardo di Santa Caterina to the west and the Baluardo di San Carlo, crowned by the Torrione del Cavallo, to the east. Ramparts and balconies open onto the sea and mountains. Excavations in the Cittadella's parade ground exposed remains of the early-medieval cathedral that once stood here. The Palazzo della Sibilla of 1729–30, built for stores and soldiers, and the Maschio di Sant'Anna form parts of the later fortress. The Palazzo del Commissario and Palazzo degli Ufficiali date to 1757–59; beside them survives the loggia of the Castello Nuovo of 1417, the last medieval building on the rock. The elevated, walled Maschio dominates the lower Cittadella; the Cortina dello Stendardo and a moat separate the two levels.

Context and history

The fortress's uses multiplied across the centuries. The portal records its transformation into a prison in which Mazzini was held from November 1830 to January 1831; his cell is commemorated there. After its military life the fortress lay abandoned for years, before restoration brought it back as a cultural complex. The Palazzo degli Ufficiali houses the Civic Archaeological and City Museum and the Sandro Pertini and Renata Cuneo Museum; the Palazzo del Commissario is another part of the complex.