Genovesato (Genoese area) - Turismo in Provincia di Genova

GENOVESATO
ARTISTIC SETTINGS
Polcevera Valley and Bisagno Valley
La Saliera Museum of Palaeontology Museum of Puppets
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Polcevera Valley: country culture and epic
battles. Polcevera valley is one of the main
thoroughfares linking Genoa with Piedmont and
the PoValley. Crossed by the Polcevera stream, it
links the Genoese Western Region to The Scrivia
Valley. The first place tourists come across is the
little village of Rivarolo. In 1983, the Museum of
History and Rural Peasant Culture, (housed in a
noble villa of XVIIIth-XIXth centuries), was
inaugurated: it describes aspects of past Ligurian
settlements; the old peasant houses, their family
life, traditional crafts, and the cultivation cycles of
chestnut orchards, cereal crops, vineyards and
olive groves, found all over the PolceveraValley.
Pass through Bolzaneto and Pontedecimo, and
you get to Campomorone. According to some
historians its name comes from the lush
chestnut forests that covered the surrounding
area, giving the prefix 'Campi', the Italian word
for fields, whilst the suffix, 'marrone' derives
from the word for chestnut. Other scholars claim
it comes from the Latin words Campo Marcion,
referring to the Campimarzi where young
Romans used to train. Palazzo Balbi (1590), now
the Town Hall, hosts two cult museums. The
Museum of Puppets displays a number of
wooden and papier mache puppets with painted
glass eyes. A demonstration that this form of
theatre was very popular in Genoa and in the small
villages during the second half of the XIXth century.
The Museum of Palaeontology and Mineralogy
gives an account of the earth's geological evolution
as well as the area's mining history: the green
Pietralavezzara marble which was first quarried in
the XVIth century; was exported all over Europe
and used to decorate the Royal Palace of Berlin,
Palazzo Rosso as well as the Cathedral of Genoa. La
Saliera is also worthy of inspection; the D'Amico
family, to whom the Republic of Genoa had
granted license to supply salt to the Duchy of Milan
and to the centres of the PoValley, built the two
storey quadrangular building, complete with
courtyard and tower, in the XVIIth century. It was
made up of warehouses, an inn for the traders and
carriers and a large stable. Mignanego is to be
found a few kilometres further on, with its
Sanctuary of Nostra Signora dellaVittoria, erected
in 1625, after the Genoese troops were victorious in
the battle of the Pertuso Pass against the soldiers of
Carlo Emanuele I di Savoia. In order to prevent
Austrian troops from taking cover in the building, it
was destroyed in 1747, to be rebuilt in 1751.