Priest, Writer and Benefactor

Paolo Stefano Rambaldi, born at Colla di Sanremo on 25 December 1803, died on 5 April 1865. He spent most of his life in Florence.

For ten years rector of the Seminary, his Piedmontese origins and his friendship with a Gioberti and a Pellico caused his removal from office when the Austrians occupied his city following the revolutionary uprisings of 49. Since then he lived alone, persecuted and very poor.

Only ten years later the government of Tuscany entrusted him with catechetical instruction in the Liceo, while in 1863 Vittorio Emanuele II gave him an annual pension on the canteen of the Royal Basilica of Superga.

Throughout his life he worked to build up a very rich collection of paintings of more than five thousand volumes and incunabula which, by will, on his death he left to the Municipio della Colla and which still today constitute the Rambaldi Collection, exhibited in the museum of Coldirodi.

The collection includes over one hundred valuable canvases, including a Madonna and Child attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, about fifty rare volumes, thirty-one incunabula including Plinio's Naturalis Historia of 1476, a bible of 1480 and the Historie Romanae by Tito Livio printed in 1470, as well as numerous manuscripts and many volumes on religious subjects.

(source: Marco Mauro)