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Concept
Bordighera
Summary
Bordighera (bordiˈɡɛːra; A Bordighea, locally A Burdighea) is a town and comune in the Province of Imperia, Liguria (Italy).
Bordighera is located from the land border between Italy and France, and it is possible to see the French coast with a naked eye from the town. Having the "Capo Sant’Ampelio" which protrudes into the sea, it is the southernmost commune of the region. The cape is at around the same latitude as Pisa and features a little church built in the 11th century for Sant’Ampelio, the patron saint of the city. Since Bordighera is built where the Maritime Alps plunge into the sea, it benefits from the Foehn effect which creates a special microclimate that has warmer winters.
It seems that Bordighera has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic era, as archaeologists have found signs of human activities in the caves along the Italian and French coast. In the 6th century BC came the Ligures, from whom the name of the region, "Liguria" in Italian, is derived. They were the first people to alter the land and create a structured society.
The area was particularly prosperous during Roman times because it was situated on the via Julia Augusta in the 1st century BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the village was abandoned because of the frequent attacks by pirates.
The name of the city appears for the first time as "Burdigheta" in 1296, in a papal Bill of by Pope Boniface VIII, but it was only in 1470 that some families from nearby villages, such as the Borghetto San Nicolò, decided to return to Bordighera to live. By then, Moorish pirates became rarer and rarer, but some particularly cruel raids still occasionally happened, such as the one by the pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1543. With these attacks diminishing, the strategic importance of the area became obvious to the Dukes of Savoy and the Republic of Genoa, which fought for the territory in the 16th century. The small village was quickly transformed into a fortified town and gained importance until it became independent from the rival city of Ventimiglia in 1683.
Official source
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