Noblewoman and Promoter of Tourism
Adele Bianchi in Roverizio di Roccasterone was born in Oneglia on 3rd January 1820 to Giovanni and Anna Bianchi.
Giovanni Bianchi was a great oil merchant, mayor of the town and had the honour to host Carlo Alberto in 1837. Adele, at the age of 18, married Count Stefano Roverizio of Roccasterone from Ceriana, where there is still the palace where the family lived since 1700.
Count Roverizio was mayor of Sanremo from 1844 to 1855, then from 1871 to 1873 and later a member of the Parliament of Rome. When Adele arrived in Sanremo, the town had just returned from an earthquake and a serious cholera epidemic and had less than 10,000 inhabitants, mainly dedicated to viticulture and few, from the navy, were involved in fishing.
The hotel accommodation was limited to travellers passing by on their way by stagecoach from Genoa to Nice. Adele became convinced and sensed that the city could become a destination for the elite tourism that was beginning on the nearby french Blue Coast.
In her house meetings were frequently held that brought together groups of people who wanted to make Sanremo an important city from a tourist point of view. He had a villa built at Berigo and his living room became the meeting place of the most prominent medical authorities in Europe. She was the true muse of the town's rebirth.
She encouraged Dr. Panizzi to write an article on the climate of Sanremo and invited Baron Boris d'Uxkull, uncle of the Russian Ambassador, to his villa at Berigo, through whom he met Dr. Gustav Pröel, director of the Bad Gastein bathing establishment, and Dr. Elsaesser, doctor to the King of Wertenberg.
In 1854 he was the first to write a beautiful article about Sanremo in the newspaper "La Presse" and in 1859 he sent a letter to Giovanni Ruffini inviting him to publish some articles in English newspapers about the beauty of his land.
Adele Bianchi Roverizio di Roccasterone should certainly be remembered as the pioneer of tourism in our town and it is thanks to her intuition and courageous action that Sanremo was able to have that remarkable tourist development that characterized it in the world.
On 11 December 1916 he died in Sanremo.
(Sources: text and image Marco Mauro)