Dolceacqua

Dolceacqua was a Ghibelline stronghold with Oberto Doria, a key figure in the vicissitudes of the village, as the winner of the battle of Meloria against the Pisan fleet, enemy of the Guelphs of Ventimiglia and the Grimaldi noble family who were assailed and assailant for over two centuries. The Romanesque church of Saint George, located at the entrance of the town, houses the family tombs in the crypt, underlining the importance of this building of worship at the time of the Marquisate. The imposing and sumptuous castle is located in the highest part of the village. With its six hundred years of history, it tells the power and influence of the Lordship over the time and on the  events of the place. A multitude of houses built in local stone are perched to the rocky hill that slopes towards the river below. This centre forming the oldest medieval district is called Terra, and was noted in 1884 also by Monet, who during a stay in West Liguria described it as a superb place, with a bridge that is a jewel of lightness.

The village, which hides remote Celtic-Ligurian origins, among its many suppositions would find its etymology in Dus-Aga, the God of Spells, according to the mythology of the Gaul population. Historical testimonies come from archaeological findings of buildings called "Castellari", particular types of fortifications built in dry stone, typical of the Iron Age, found near the village, that would confirm the garrison in these places by the population of Ligurian Intemeli. The first settlement was built by the Counts of Ventimiglia in the eleventh century, with the construction of the castle and some houses located on top of the cliff, in a strategic position from which the valley and the roads that intertwined with it were strategically controlled. The Doria family purchased Dolceacqua in 1200, favouring the expansion of the castle and the town, until reaching the banks of the river. After a period of rivalry with the Grimaldi family of Monaco, in the sixteenth century, the fief enters a phase of peace and prosperity, during which Bartolomeo Doria ceded his territorial rights to Dolceacqua to Charles II of Savoy, establishing an alliance that lasted until 1600, century in which hostilities broke out between the Duchy of Savoy and the Republic of Genoa. In the following century, during the Austrian succession war, the territory was the scene of clashes between the armies deployed in the field. At the end of the century, thanks to the sale of the Duchy of Savoy by the Duchy of Savoy to the First French Republic, Dolceacqua became part of the Maritime Alps Department and the Marca title of the Doria family lost its validity with the abolition of fiefs passed to the Napoleonic management of the Ligurian Republic. The village then followed the vicissitudes of the neighbouring towns, passing to the Kingdom of Sardinia, merged into that of Italy in 1861.