The Parish of the Villetta
The locality of the Villetta, where the church stands, situated between the valleys of Verezzo and San Francesco, has been documented since 1215, when a local farmer named Oberto Caparro, following the murder of a certain Ugo Ascenso by his two sons Bonaccorso and Rainaldo, was deprived in 1216 of his lands in the Villetta region for not having paid the fine of forty lire that had been imposed on him on 21 February of the previous year; However, the unfortunate farmer was given the possibility to regain his vineyard in case he paid within three years the sum of twenty-eight lire, which he still owed to the Archbishop of Genoa. The erection of the country oratory of the Villetta was probably started on 28th April 1685, the day on which the Town Council allocated the sum of one hundred liras as alms for the sacred building, whose construction had to start then.
The church therefore remained the exclusive property of the Municipality of Sanremo, which exercised direct and public surveillance over it, as attested, among other things, by the replacement of the chapel massari of Giuseppe Ansaldi and Gio Moreno, perhaps soldiers engaged in the war against the Savoy, with Antonio Sacco, Raimondo Scarella and Stefano Ansaldo, established by the Council of Twelve on 29 May 1745.
The church is adorned with precious marbles and keeps inside an artistic altarpiece above the high altar representing the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, particularly suggestive and finely executed, the painting Madonna and Child with St. Anthony of Padua, made by an unknown painter from western Liguria in the 18th century, hanging on a wall on the left side of the nave.
Finally, inside there is a small organ donated by some generous benefactors, who have also provided to decorate and further enlarge the church, which has become too narrow and narrow to contain the increasing number of believers and tourists who come here on feast days to attend the sacred services.
Until 1970, the year in which it was built as a parish, the church was the "vicar" of the Parish of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
(source text: Andrea Gandolfo and others; photo from Web)