Carignano (Caignan, Carignan or Cavignan in Ligurian)The first is the most widespread and attested pronunciation. The other two are equally attested variants, and most widely used at one time by the bourgeois population of the neighborhood and city. is a residential district in the center of Genoa, administratively included in Municipio I Centro Est.
Located on a hill at an average elevation of 50 m above sea level, it was formerly part of the sestiere of Portoria, one of the six administrative subdivisions that formed the city of Genoa.
The hill of Carignano, the last eastern offshoot of the hilly circle enclosing Genoa's historic center, overlooks the mouth of the Bisagno River to the east, while to the south, before the filling in of the sea for the expansion of the port and the construction of the fairgrounds, it overlooked the sea with its rocky coastline. On the hill, once sparsely populated and secluded, stood convents and patrician villas. Its urbanization, which dates back to the second half of the 19th century, transformed the area into one of Genoa's most elegant and upscale residential neighborhoods, along with Albaro and Castelletto. The top of the hill is dominated by the imposing basilica of S. Maria Assunta, among Genoa's most valuable buildings of worship, clearly visible from many parts of the city.
Description of the district
Toponym The origin of the toponym is uncertain: Giustiniani (16th century) suggests it derives from a certain Carinius, a landowner in the 4th century; according to others it would derive from "Caryn Ianum" meaning "villa of Janus." In the 10th century it is mentioned as Caliniano, but over time the toponyms Cariniano, Cavignano and Calignano are also attested.Note storiche sul quartiere di Carignano
Territory The district of Carignano, once part of the Portoria district, is one of the "urban units" into which the Municipio I Centro Est of the city of Genoa is divided and occupies an area between the Barbarossa walls and the sixteenth-century city wall, bordered to the west by the Molo, to the east by the Foce, to the north by Portoria, and to the south by the port area.
The "urban unit" of Carignano includes two distinct areas, both morphologically as well as historically and urbanistically:
The district of Carignano proper, with a predominantly residential function, occupies the hill of the same name, the terminal part of a hilly ridge that separates the last stretch of the Bisagno Valley from the small valley of the Rivo Torbido, a short stream, entirely covered since the 16th century, that originates from the hill of Multedo (in the area of Piazza Manin, in the Castelletto district) and flows into the sea within the port area, flowing below the streets of Portoria. The stream had taken this name because its waters were used by dyers for their activities. The area of the ancient "Borgo dei Lanaioli," a historic working-class district once lying between Ponticello Square and the Mura della Marina. The suburb, which arose in the 12th century and completely disappeared with the urban upheavals of the second half of the 20th century and was replaced by business centers, occupied both sides of the small valley of Rivo Torbido, between the hills of Carignano and Sarzano. The road through it took various names (Via dei Lanaioli, Via dei Servi, Via Madre di Dio and Via della Marina). Via Madre di Dio, just below the Carignano bridge, was the best known street, with which the entire district was often identified. The suburb also included the old houses of the “Marina,” some of which survived demolition, overlooking the inlet known as the “seno di Giano” (filled in at the end of the 19th century for the expansion of the port), into which the creek flowed."Genova tra Ottocento e Novecento – Album storico-fotografico", vol. 1, a cura di M. Lamponi, Nuova Editrice Genovese, Genova, 2006
The boundaries of the Carignano area are: Via della Marina and Via del Colle toward the Pier, Piazza Dante and Via Porta degli Archi toward Portoria, Corso Podestà, the Mura delle Cappuccine and Via Vannucci (toward the Foce), and the sea ring road (Corso Saffi and Corso Quadrio) toward the fairgrounds and the port.
Demographics As of December 31, 2017, the total population of the former Portoria district had a population of 12,514, of which 7,252 were in the “urban unit” of Carignano alone. Available historical data cover the Portoria constituency as a whole, with the two urban units of “S. Vincenzo” and “Carignano.” The demographic history of the former district is affected by the urbanistic vicissitudes of the area. The population, 35,877 at the first census in 1861, rose to 40,260 in 1901, a figure representing the “historical maximum.” Since then, as most of these old districts have been turned over to business centers and tertiary activities, a conspicuous decline in population began. The number of inhabitants, still 35,007 in 1936, declined to 20,021 in 1961Comune di Genova - Ufficio Statistica, Atlante demografico della città, luglio 2008. to 12,514 in 2017, of which 7,252, as already mentioned, in the Carignano urban unit alone.
History
Origins In the Middle Ages, the area of the present district was a very large hill, outside the first city walls (it would be incorporated only with the 14th-century expansions); although it was a short distance from the city center, it was a secluded area accessed only through steep alleys (Salita dei Sassi, Salita S. Leonardo, Salita della Montagnola dei Servi), with vegetable gardens, peasant houses, patrician villas, churches and monasteries.
At the top of the hill was since the 14th century a settlement of the Fieschi family, who had built the church of S. Maria in via Lata there. The presence of the Fieschi ceased around the middle of the 16th century due to the political decline of this powerful family.Touring Club Italiano, Guida d'Italia - Liguria, 2009 Still around the middle of the 17th century it was a resort of Genoese patrician families, with many sumptuous villas surrounded by vegetable gardens and orchards.
In contrast to the secluded and stately hilltop, the village of Lanaioli, on the banks of the Rio Torbido, where weavers from the Fontanabuona valley lived from the 12th century onward, was, along with Ponticello and Piccapietra, one of the historic working-class agglomerations of the Portoria district; like these it was demolished in the 1970s to build the new business centers.Touring Club Italiano, Guida d'Italia - Liguria, 2009 Via Madre di Dio, which became a symbol of the urban upheavals of the twentieth century, was one of the liveliest streets in Genoa's historic center.
Giustiniani, a bishop and historian, described the area in his “Annals” in the early sixteenth century as follows:
In 1547, after Gianluigi Fieschi's failed conspiracy against Andrea Doria, with the consequent political decline of the family, the Fieschis lost their properties in Carignano: the Senate of the Republic in that same year decreed the total demolition of the sumptuous Fieschi palace, which had been built around 1390 next to the aristocratic church of S. Maria in Via Lata.
A few years later, around the middle of the sixteenth century, another patrician family, the Sauli, already present on the hill with their own settlement, as a symbol of their prestige wanted to build at the top of the hill the great basilica of S. Maria Assunta, which still characterizes the landscape profile of the district.Touring Club Italiano, Guida d'Italia - Liguria, 2009F. Caraceni Poleggi, Genova - Guida Sagep, 1984.
The eighteenth century
In the eighteenth century the Sauli family had the Carignano bridge built, which bypassed the densely inhabited valley of the Rivo Torbido (Via Madre di Dio, Via dei Servi) and reached Sarzano. The construction of the bridge, at least initially, did not contribute to breaking the isolation of the area, as it was a private representative route.Touring Club Italiano, Guida d'Italia - Liguria, 2009
A proposal made by the Fathers of the Commune to build a public road that would allow the passage of carriages dates back to 1772, and two years later the proposal was implemented.
In a poem by dialect poet Steva De Franchi entitled "L'estate," one can read the proposal made to Minetta, the revendeiroeura de Fossello Minetta Minini, of walking to enjoy the coolness in Carignano:
Genoese Freemasons Police reports dated 1749 reveal that the first Genoese Masonic meetings were held in some houses in Carignano, news that is also reported in the text of a lecture held in the “Trionfo Ligure” Lodge, entitled “The Trionfo Ligure Lodge and Genoese Freemasonry in the History of the City,” which was held on November 18, 1970. The text was later published as a pamphlet and freely distributed, and it said precisely that the first reports of Freemasons in Genoa dated back to 1749 and that Freemasons met in two houses in Carignano under the name "Company of Happiness."
The nineteenth century The centuries-old isolation of the district came to an end in the second half of the nineteenth century. Barabino's urban plan, as early as 1825, called for the creation of an elliptical square with the basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption in the center, with a series of streets arranged in a radial pattern around it. In practice, the urbanistic constructions, which began only from the middle of the century, were inspired by this plan, but in a fragmentary and episodic way. Instead of villas, dwellings were built for upper middle-class elites, but some settlements of council houses also found their place; in 1878 the large hospital complex of S. Andrea was built at the behest of the Duchess of Galliera.Comune di Genova - Ufficio Statistica, Atlante demografico della città, luglio 2008.Touring Club Italiano, Guida d'Italia - Liguria, 2009 New roads were built to connect the new residential settlements with the city center. Via Rivoli and Via Corsica were opened in the direction of the Sea Ring Road, Via Fieschi towards Piazza Ponticello; towards the end of the century with the construction of the Monumental Bridge (1895) the district was connected with the Acquasola esplanade and Piazza Corvetto, completing its integration into the city road system.
The twentieth century
The main events that characterized the district in the twentieth century are mainly related to the urban redevelopment of Via Madre di Dio and surrounding areas. A first significant intervention in the “Marina” area had been carried out towards the end of the nineteenth century, with the burying of the “Seno di Giano” to create Corso Principe Oddone (since 1946 renamed Corso Maurizio Quadrio). The characteristic “scoglio Campana” thus disappeared.Immagine d'epoca dello scoglio Campana. On the area removed from the sea in the first decade of the new century the “Albergo Popolare” (1906) and the “Casa della Gente di Mare” (1909) were built, intended to accommodate migrants and seafarers in transit in the port of Genoa at popular prices. Both buildings were to be demolished in the 1990s to make way for a parking lot.Article in Repubblica of October 25, 2011. The "Popular Hotel," which had been converted into a fire station after the war, was demolished with explosive charges on May 12, 1992.Article in Repubblica of May 13, 1992.Immagini della demolizione della caserma dei vigili del fuoco di corso Quadrio
The urban redevelopment of Via Madre di Dio