Perinaldo

Fief of Count Rinaldo di Ventimiglia, probably founded in the eleventh century, the village of Perinaldo was sold in the thirteenth century to the Genoese Fulcone and in the fourteenth century to Oberto Doria, who remained for a very long time the possessor of the village, along with nearby Dolceacqua. The imposing castle, built during the medieval period, which defended the historical core of the village to the west, was sacked and destroyed in 1672 by the Genoese. Perinaldo is the birthplace of astronomers Cassini and Maraldi, important scholars and discoverers of planets and galaxies, which were named after them. Perinaldo has maintained, over the centuries, the cultivation of the taggiasca olive, a particular quality of olive tree introduced by Minor friars of Saint Francis during 1600. Characteristic is the Municipal Square (Piazza del Municipio), connected by a wide staircase to the parish church of San Nicolas, built in 1489 and renovated in 1700. At the foot of the staircase, there is a pillar called “Piede di maggio” (May foot), perhaps a deformation of the Italian term “foot of the homage” (piede dell’omaggio), on which, according to a legend, the Marquis Doria placed his hat on before entering the church.

The village of Perinaldo was one of the main centres of domination subjected to the noble Genoese family Doria. A first settlement was established in 1000, thanks to Rinaldo of the family of the Counts of Ventimiglia, from which the name of the village derived, becoming over the centuries Perinaldo. The castle, a strategic defence outpost, is mentioned in a parchment of 1000, stating that Guidone Guerra, Count of Ventimiglia, undertook to protect the bishop of Nice and his property, offering as a guarantee subjects and fiefs owned by him. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, we find the village established and organized as a Commune, with the election of the Consuls representing the community. Subsequently, with the increase of power on the part of Genoa in Western Liguria, the Counts were forced to sell their fiefs first to the Genoese Fulcone da Castello and then to the Zaccaria family in 1200, when they were bought by Oberto Doria. The noble family of the Doria created its own Ghibelline dominance, opposed to the Guelph Genoese family of the Grimaldi’s, dominating Monaco, in the territories bordering the borders, with a continuous rivalry, which ended in 1400, when the two families became allies thanks to the marriage between Luca Doria and Francesca Grimaldi. But the period of peace was not destined to last long, so much so that following a crime, Perinaldo and the neighbouring villages passed under the protectorate of the Piedmont dominion. In the following centuries, new statutes were elaborated, up to the period of the Napoleonic invasion in which Perinaldo was elected capital of Cantone in place of Dolceacqua, following the events of the newly constituted United Italy.