Altitude: 776 m a.s.l.
Area: 48 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 46 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 2848 - in 2017: 361
Patron Saint Day: August 15th - Our Lady of the Assumption
Information: Municipality phone 0184 94049
The name of Triora derives from the three gorges ("Tria ora") determined by the merging of the valleys of the streams Gerbone, Capriolo and Argentina. It could also derive from the Latin "Terere" (to mince) given the considerable quantity of mills in the area.
The archaeological findings (today in the Museum of Sanremo) of numerous sites in the area (Arma della Gastea, della Grà di Marmo, Tana della Volpe, Tana Bertrand, Buco del Diavolo etc.) confirm human presence already around 2000 BC; the first historical settlement dates back to 640 AD, when the coastal populations left the coast devastated by the recurrent Longobard raids led by Rotari to take refuge in this more hidden and safer area.
The medieval "castrum" was part of the Ardoinic distric until the 12th century, when it became a fief of the Counts of Ventimiglia; in 1260 Bonifacio, Count of Badalucco and son of Oberto of Ventimiglia, sold the town to Genoa; in vain Triora would try several times to rebel against the yoke of Genoa (aka “the Superb” city), which would always preserve its dominion, also rejecting, in 1625 and then in 1671, the repeated sieges of the Savoys.
Thanks to its fortunate position at the intersection of vital roads (in particular the "via del sale", i.e. the Salt Road through which Genoa exported the mineral to the Po valley), the village developed to become a real city, holder of the homonymous Podesteria. In 1797 it also became the chief town of the canton of the sixth Jurisdiction of the Olive Trees of the Napoleonic Republic of Liguria. The last one hundred years reveal a dramatic involution: Triora has today only fifteen percent of the population of the past.
Visit of the town
Shortly before reaching the town, park in the small widening on the left immediately after the road sign that announces Triora.
Above the roadside you can see on the right the ruins of the two forts that could bear the siege of the Franco-Piedmontese army of 1625; on the opposite side of the road is the short ramp down that leads you to the Romanesque church of Madonna delle Grazie, of the first century after the year one Thousand.
The façade with small seats on the sides has a very bare portal, like the one on the right side wall; the interior, with rectangular windows and trussed roof, has a single nave, with a simple black stone balustrade dated 1593. A few meters further on, the dirt road leading to the church of Madonna del Buon Viaggio branches off from the Provincial Road.
Continuing by car on the Provincial Road for a few hundred meters you’ll encounter on the left the yellow sign indicating the church of San Bernardino. Park a little further in the widening on the left and take on foot the small path that brings you to the building in two hundred meters.
The church, built in the fifteenth century, has its left side protected by a rustic portico supported at the sides by pilasters and in the center by two columns with capitals, of which the monolithic one in black stone and the other one in tuff blocks. The portal is in black stone, with an architrave carved with two Trigrams in a radial pattern on the sides and a heraldic shield in the center; on the left is the small bell tower.
On the façade, propped up by two stone arches that climb over the path to lean against the opposite rock, open the door and the two small windows that allow you to observe the interior. Affixed to the left of the side entrance is a massive, worn out black stone holy water stoup, as in black stone is the small seat that goes along the apse.
The walls are decorated with frescoes - dated 21 July 1463 - depicting the twelve Apostles in the apse between geometric decorations at the bottom and the much deteriorated figure of Christ at the top. The entire right wall is frescoed by a "Last Judgment" with the traditional partition which establishes the “ride of the vices” at the bottom, surmounted by the terrifying scenes of the “infernal punishments”, in contrast with the happy “heavenly city of the virtuous ones” depicted above; the work is attributed to the circle of Giovanni Canavesio (known between 1472 and 1500).
The left wall, more deteriorated, preserves at the top a "last supper" and a large "San Cristoforo"; on the back wall, unfortunately invisible from the outside, is the lively "crucifixion", also by Canavesio.
Returning to the car on foot, you can observe the imposing tower-houses immersed in the urban fabric of Triora.
Back to the car continue on the right beyond the first fork (to Loreto) and at the second fork continue on the left following the signs to Monesi. After a few hundred meters turn right and arrive among centuries-old horse chestnuts to the brightly colored façade of the Baroque church of Sant'Agostino of 1616. The church has a bell tower with a polychrome-scale roof and preserves a marble group of 1841 by the Genoese Paolo Olivari.
Back to the car continue on this detour that in less than a kilometer takes you to the ruins of the Romanesque church of Santa Caterina, of which only the façade and the left side wall remain today. The construction dates back to 1390, a date carved on the inscription with a heraldic shield in the center of the stone portal; on the façade are inserted at the corners a plaque with a star at the top left and a larger one with a tondo at the top right; the upper edge of the side wall has a plaque with a rosette.
A round oculus carved on a square monolith opens at the top of the façade, while on the surviving side wall there are two round arched single-lancet windows, whose opening is delimited inside by a stone frame that makes it rectangular. Only the paved flooring remains inside: a large stone slab (probably a tomb covering) bears an inscription now worn by the weather and illegible.
One hundred meters beyond the curve on the road, on the left, a stone vault opens with the date 1552 carved in the center, which houses a fountain with a low stone basin.
Back to the car, at the junction turn left towards Triora where you can park at the beginning of the town. After passing the store that sells typical local products, you’ll find under the portico on the left the layout of the village, and then at number 4 the architrave carved with the mutilated inscription pertaining to the church of San Pietro, dedicated to San Bernardo after the siege of 1625.
Leaving the portico, the Ethnographic and Witchcraft Museum awaits you on the opposite side of the road, displaying rustic household furnishings and work tools from the late 19th century relating to the cycle of chestnut, milk and wine.
In the basement, copies of the documents and of the torture instruments of the time recall the frightening story of the witches of Triora and the trial with over two hundred defendants that upset the village in the second half of the sixteenth century; the complete original documentation is kept at the Genoa State Archive.
The tragedy began in 1586 when Triora was struck by a terrible famine; in the following January the entire population was starving and there was rumour of an assault to the granaries of the local landowners. Given the uselessness of their exhortations and intimidations, the notables decided to play heavy and, in order to save those jealously put away wheat bags, they “brought out” witches.
It was the period of the Counter-Reformation (the gigantic operation launched by the Church to neutralize the Protestant schism) and the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy was deeply committed to blackmailing the doubters by spreading massive doses of holy "fear of God". Thus, when the prominent people of Triora mentioned the project to His Eminence the Bishop of Albenga, he took action.
Towards the end of the summer of 1587, during a famine that had severely weakened the people of Triora and had lasted for over two years, the inhabitants began to suspect that the cause of the famine, that was hitting the farmland of the village, were some women living in the Cabotina area. After being identified, the witches of Triora were immediately pointed to justice.
The general parliament, meeting in a plenary session, entrusted the town's mayor Stefano Carrega with the task of ensuring that the women undergo a regular trial. Carrega thus called the friar Girolamo dal Pozzo, as vicar of the bishop of Albenga, from whose curia Triora then depended, and a vicar of the Inquisitor of Genoa.
After a series of interrogations, the two investigators examined the position of two hundred women of the village, all belonging to the poorest social classes, suspected of witchcraft, imprisoning thirty and accusing of being witches eighteen of them. Subsequent interrogations also involved wives of local notables, hence in January 1588 the elders asked the Genoese government not to take into account the accusations made against the matrons of the village that had never given rise to even the slightest suspicion.
The authorities of Genoa thus sent to Triora in early June 1588 the extraordinary commissioner Giulio Scribani, who, at the end of a long investigative activity aimed at ascertaining the presence of other "witches" in the territory of Triora, identified at the end four, all from Andagna, who, together with a certain Ozenda di Baiardo, were transferred to Genoa in October 1588, and locked up in the prisons of the Inquisition.
After a serious conflict of competence arose between the Genoese government and the ecclesiastical authority, so much so that the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome took upon itself the trial, of the women accused of witchcraft detained in Genoa two died in prison, while of the thirteen sent by Triora in June 1588, three had died and the others had probably been sent back to their native village.
In the end the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, after having supposedly annulled some of the death sentences handed down to the witches of Triora and ordered the release of those still held, brought a case against the zealous commissioner Scribani for invasion of the field reserved to the ecclesiastical authority, but in August 1589 Scribani was acquitted, thereby also archiving the last residue of the Triora witch trial, which brought to light up to what excesses popular superstition combined with an uncontrolled religious fanaticism could reach.
The atmosphere of the time is well evoked in the Museum, with photos and reconstructions of the instruments of torture of the time and copies of the official documents of the trial. Leaving the Museum take the ramp (Via Sant'Agostino) which goes up from the beautiful stone fountain in front of you and, after passing a first lintel in black stone carved with an agnus, continue towards the fifteenth-century house of the notary Capponi; notice the other two architraves with eagles carved in a Trigram.
Entering Via Castello on the right and past on the right the house with overdoor and monolithic jambs at the window, you’ll come to the clearing where the ruins of the thirteenth-century castle of the Counts of Ventimiglia stand, just beyond the fountain. Today, part of the walls and a section of a circular tower remain of the ancient fortress, which you can access through the low opening; from there you can enjoy the panorama of the entire valley.
Returning back along the same road, pass by the Museum and continue to the left along Via Roma, passing the small square with the bronze monument to the witch; at number 10 you’ll find the splendid portal of the seventeenth-century Casa Velli, with a black stone lintel carved with a Trigram between an eagle and a rooster, followed at number 16 by another architrave with a now deteriorated decoration.
Once past the market square you will be facing the vault which was the "Sportegu du mazaghìn", a municipal storehouse that collapsed in the earthquake of 1887. On the corner of the house to the right are incorporated carved stones from the demolished church of San Pietro.
Go down to the right before the vault and, past the beautiful smooth stone arch on the low window, come out into the square with the Municipal Loggia with seats on sturdy pillars.
Here stands the church of Santa Maria Assunta built in the 13th century on a pagan "fanum" and then restored in 1598 with the current facade. Of the original church remained the portal with a high ogival arch in black stone (extracted from a quarry near the walls) and the lower part of the bell tower.
The five column drums lined up on the edge of the churchyard come from the original thirteenth century construction. Inside is preserved, in the small baptismal chapel immediately to the right of the entrance, the oldest dated and signed picture of the Ligurian west: the "Baptism of Christ" on a gold background by Taddeo di Bartolo da Siena, of 1397.
On the main altar is the seventeenth-century "Assumption of the Virgin Mary" attributed to Lorenzo Gastaldi, flanked by two paintings on wood on gold background of 1420: on the right the "Pietà", tempera on wood, on the left "San Giacomo Minore", both by an unknown author. To Luca Cambiaso are instead attributed the fifteen ovals of the "Mysteries of the Rosary" of the last altar on the left, the "Madonna with Saints" and the "Saint Paul and Saint Anthony" of the first altar on the right.
The Crucifix is carried in procession on the second Sunday after Easter by young people who go barefoot on the hill overlooking the cemetery, in fulfillment of the vote taken by the town in 1541 on the occasion of a disastrous invasion of locusts. In the sacristy a beautiful black stone cabinet for the holy oils is embedded on the left; a little further on opens a fine black stone portal of 1555, with architraves carved with angels holding up a heraldic shield and jambs decorated with floral motifs.
To the right of the church is the oratory of San Giovanni Battista of 1694, with the architrave of the marble portal carved with a Trigram and figures of angels holding up the saint. The jambs are carved with entirely pagan motifs: between the sun on the left and the moon on the right, the profile of a guardian wizard keeps vigil in his central medallion. In the oratory are preserved the seventeenth-century paintings "Birth of St. John the Baptist" and "San Francesco" by Lorenzo Gastaldi, and the sixteenth-century "Madonna del Rosario" by Luca Cambiaso.
The altar is of 1690, as well as the portal and the holy water font; the wooden statue "San Giovanni Battista" (1725) is by Maragliano.
Go down along the ramp to the side of the column drums. On the left at number 1, where is affixed a plaque with an Agnus, was located the original oratory of San Giovanni Battista, of which a plaque of 1555 on the wall recalls the founder Pietrus Richa.
A little further on, in front of the very tall stone pilasters of 1548, at number 11 there is a portal with an architrave carved with an Agnus between the letters I and F, followed by the portal of the Gastaldi house with heraldic shield at number 6 and that of 1587 of the Gianni house at number 12.
On the right is the library which has plaques with philosophical mottos on the walls; at the top right corner is the plaque with the emblem of Genoa, recovered from the collapsed municipal building.
Returning to the church square, go down the ramp next to the oratory through Via Camurata, where a black stone portal with a carved architrave and spiral-decorated jambs opens at number 10. After just a few steps to the right raise our eyes to look, over a window, at a mutilated stone carved in a Trigram.
At the bottom left are two stone portals, the second of which with a lintel carved with two lions holding a heraldic shield above a Trigram between two rosettes; a little further on at number 1 there is another decorated portal.
If instead you take the left under the vault, you’ll enter the Samburghea district, subjected until 1260 to the Counts of Ventimiglia.
Going down under the vaults you’ll find on the left the loggia with stone seats which houses a beautiful fountain with a monolithic basin, surmounted by a plaque carved with two dolphins. On the ground lies the stone carved for water drainage. The high vaults are smoked because here was the forge of the blacksmith-artist Luca Verrando.
In front of the fountain, under the vault, at number 10 there is the window-door of an ancient shop. Go down Via Samburghea passing at number 1 the massive black stone architrave carved with an "Annunciation". On the left, passed an architrave of 1604 carved with a Trigram and floral motifs at number 24, enter under the vault in front of it and take a few steps to the left to see the high arch resting on a rock carved to create the eastern gateway to the village.
Crossing the vault, continue to descend to the left where you’ll soon find another stone fountain, with the monolith at the top right carved with the date 1480 and the names of the sharecroppers Demonus and Meteius Stela who commissioned the work; the tub is made of stone like the piece of column that supports it. In front there is an architrave of 1602 carved with a Trigram between the letters B and B.
Back on your steps up to the church square, cross the churchyard and, going up the ramp to the left head left under the vault along Via Cima. Pass on the right the small loggia that houses the fountain with a stone basin and seats; after passing under the arch of the gate of the village you’ll come out of the walls, which you’ll circle towards the right.
After a hundred meters you’ll arrive to the "Cabotina": the place where it is said that the witches gathered in full moon nights to live it up with Satan on this panoramic widening on the valley.
Return within the walls; immediately after the loggia with a fountain, pass on the right a portal in black stone decorated also on the jambs, followed by another one in marble; once you reach the fountain, turn right and go up again to the right, reaching the ancient church of San Dalmazio. The church, already mentioned in 1261, was built by incorporating the ancient fortification that once stood there in a very effective strategic position to dominate the valley.
The stone side-portal has lost the arch that surmounted it; the bell tower is decorated respectively with three orders of hanging arches, a mullioned window, a single-light window and finally the belfry. Inside is the "martyrdom of San Dalmazio" of 1678 by Lorenzo Gastaldi da Triora. From here go back to the car along the streets already covered.
On the surrounding hills there are numerous caves of modest development, some of which in the Metal Age were used as sepulchers.
In the caves called Arma della Gastea and Tana della Volpe have been found fragments of square-mouthed vases from the Neolithic period and a bronze pin from the subsequent Bronze Age; in the Buco del Diavolo (Devil's Hole) were recovered eight decorated bronze bracelets and a twisted necklace, while the Riparo di Loreto provided numerous fragments, including Neolithic ones. In San Giovanni Dei Prati, at over twelve hundred meters of altitude, was discovered a prehistoric bivouac with small stone tools, the so-called "microliths".
Resuming the car go back and at the junction turn left to Loreto. After two kilometers you’ll encounter, at the intersection with the modern bold bridge that leads to Cetta, the Sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Loreto, from the first half of the sixteenth century, also called "delle saline" as it was a stopover on the "via del sale" (salt road) from Nice to Piedmont.
The black stone stoup is embedded outside to the right of the entrance; the portal protected by the portico is in black stone with carved, in the center of the architrave, the heraldic shield of the Gastaldis, who had the sanctuary built. The interior, partially frescoed, preserves the statue of the Virgin and the seventeenth-century "Sacra Famiglia e San Giovanni" by Gastaldi.
Continuing by car on the right you’ll find the hamlet of Creppo, with a small church in a panoramic position. After passing "Ponte della Pace" (bridge of peace), the fork that on the left leads to Realdo, you’ll already encounter the first houses built flush with an impressive cliff.
After reaching the town, park in the widening at the beginning of the inhabited area from which you can descend the ramp on the left after the benches to visit the village with the typical mountain constructions with wooden terraces. If instead you take the right, you’ll reach Verdeggia.
As an alternative to this route, continue to the end of the widening and return to the parking lot going along the panoramic road.
An ancient tradition now almost extincted was the so-called "ciaravugli" which consisted in a cheerful noise by the inhabitants of the village aimed at the widower who decided to move to second marriage.