Entrepreneur, Banker and City Councillor

Antonio Rubino, grandfather of the artist Antonio Rubino was born in Bajardo on 18 August 1834 to Agostino and Maria Marchesano.

After attending primary school in Apricale, he finished his studies in Nice, where his family had moved.
He began working as an apprentice printer and after marrying the daughter of a well-known confectionery entrepreneur, he opened a small chocolate factory which soon became an industrial business.

Following the annexation of Nice to France, he moved his business to San Remo, where he further increased the importance of the company.
He also ran a flower and perfume distillery and in 1865 he was the first to open a bank in Sanremo, establishing relations with all of Europe and America, thus contributing to the commercial development of the city.

He was also very active in the Nervia valley; he managed three oil mills in Dolceacqua, introducing innovations to improve the quality of the oil, set up a heather pipe factory in Isolabona, and built a large paper mill that produced eight hundred kilos of paper a day. He also set up a factory for working stone and a wax and wood match factory. He received great recognition for his many activities at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1878.

He was also a town councillor, but surely one of his greatest merits was to have invited, along with other famous people, Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna to stay in our town.

To thank him, the Czarina awarded him the Order of St. Stanislaus of Russia and he was later appointed vice-consul of Russia in San Remo by the Russian government.

In 1880, the Italian government decorated him with the Knight's Cross of the Italian Crown.

On 13 March 1906 he died in San Remo.

(source: Marco Mauro)