The last church to the west of the City

The Church of San Rocco, before coming to be the one we know today, went through long vicissitudes over the centuries, mainly due to the various locations where it was moved. We will try to list them below.

1) - The first Oratory of San Rocco we know of, even if Prof. Nilo Calvini would date it in 1745, was no more than a very modest chapel with four small portions of walls beaten by the winds and the waves of the sea, situated next to the fifteenth century bastion at the entrance to the east pier, which was then confined by the Genoese to the fortress of Santa Tecla, although it is still recognisable among the other three lateral bastions.

2) - On the next church dedicated to the patron saint of those affected by the terrible disease of Leprosy, very little has been drawn from the ancient archive papers. On a document of the Rhodes House of the end of 1700, it is written: "The Church of San Rocco, located outside S. Remo towards the west, about two hundred steps towards the sea and 500 longi from the Capuchin door, was built before 1624: it was then reduced to an Oratory, as the other one of S. Sebastiano after that year".

This Oratory could also have been set as a simple little chapel similar to the many scattered on the lanes and country roads outside the town. The church was accessed by a path that ran along a stretch of the Roman road, starting from the Porta dei Cappuccini up to today's area of the Cemetery, and the path was called "strà da Büza".
The roof was two-sloping, surmounted by a small bell tower with a cusp, the whole, of the walls rather crumbled and bitten by the salt marsh due to the proximity of the sea, dates back to the mid-sixteenth century, as denounced by the rustic arrangement of stones, stacked on top of each other with little lime to keep them together so that they would not fall. And yet those walls would have managed to get away with it for who knows how many more centuries.

[In it, after the first Mayor Siro Andrea Carli had the "new" Cemetery at the Mouth (the year 1837), the carrying stones of the dead with the accompaniment of the sorrowful made their last stop. Blessing the corpse by the chaplain on duty, the procession set in motion again and the effigy of St. Roch with the dog licking the wound on his knee (painted for little money by who knows what kind of madonna passing by) was dazed to watch those people leaving, who could not tell which was the man and which the beast, such and such was the resemblance of those two unfortunates].

The "strà da Büza" could not be defined as much practicable, especially at night, while there was only the national road to Nice, which Napoleon had drawn on the tracks left by his wagons during the Italian countryside. After the defeat of Waterloo, everything had been abandoned and the beaten earth was sown with potholes and bristling with stones.

[At that time a nobleman named Roget de Cholex, of Savoyard origin, was Minister of State, but he was horned to his land of origin declaring himself to be of pure Niçoise race. Well, he opposed as much as possible the total and definitive arrangement of this road in order to favour as little as possible the influx of foreigners into Italy, especially on our Riviera, across the French border. In this way they would be forced to spend their money in the country he cared about most, Nice. It was a fortune for us and the people of the area on this side of the border that Madama Cristina, Carlo Felice's wife, on her way to spend the winter on the Côte d'Azur, overturned her carriage right near the Oratory of San Rocco. The danger was no small thing, if you think that the sovereign was pregnant, and she could have had an abortion under the olive trees that ran along the "strà da Büza". And those two high-ranking personalities were so hurt that they continued their journey by sea, embarking, as they say, on the Pietra Lunga beach. It is certain that afterwards, the queen, who had seen it badly also because of the sea sickness that had tormented her during the whole journey, gave orders that the carriageway be immediately restored before her return, which she would then travel again in a carriage. The Sovereign Minister tried to hold out and brigade to put other obstacles in the way, but he did not succeed against the express will of the Sovereign].

3) - When the Corso Imperatrice was placed in Corso Imperatrice, the little church of San Rocco found itself blocking the entrance, then it was demolished and rebuilt, in smaller proportions set within the walls of an ancient oil mill next to the small bridge that crossed the Rio Foce at the mouth of the mule track that forked between the Solaro and the "Berighi" (today's Corso Inglesi, west side).

4) - Before the war 1915-18, in 1909 a flood of the Foce torrent took the modest little church of San Rocco away at night, so much so that it was decided to rebuild a third one in exposed stone at the entrance to the Salita alla Colla and the enterprise that completed the work was that of the Impresario Agostino Gazzano (at the beginning of Via P. adre Semeria). Much later the provost Can. Borfiga, despite the fact that on 15th October 1936 the Bishop of XXMiglia Agostino Rousset had consecrated it as a Parish, realised that, with the development of the FOCE district, it had become insufficient to welcome the numerous faithful and, moreover, being at the top of a steep climb, it was in an uncomfortable position.

5) - So it was that in 1952, on the initiative of the parish priest Don Luigi Borfiga, a large warehouse (ex sawmill) owned by the Municipality was rented, next to the entrance of the crossroad leading to the Cemetery of Corso Matuzia, assuming the fortuitous appearance of a church that could gather the faithful who had their houses along the course of the West, (which on 8 February 1901 had assumed the name of Matuzia) for religious services (and in December of that year the Blessed Sacrament was also brought there). 

But the excellent provost Don Borfiga could certainly not be satisfied with a Parish set up in a warehouse, like the one much older than the Marina, and so he was able to buy the shed from the Town Hall and the paperwork was started for the construction of a new, definitive building. But architect Stefano Balzarro's project, drawn up in 1956, was rejected by the Provveditorato alle Opere Pubbliche because it was considered "not in line with the city's needs". In spite of this, courageously in May 1958 the Canonica and the Parish Works were built while the Capannone continued to be used as a church.

In September 1957 the final project was finally approved, again by Architect Balzarro, which was included in the programme of works financed by the operating funds 1957/58 of the Provveditorato alle Opere Pubbliche della Liguria. And in June 1958 work began with the demolition of a garage, the caretaker's house of the Foce Cemetery and other municipal premises that were part of the concession and on 13 September 1959 Bishop Rousset blessed the laying of the first stone of the building.

Three years later, on 3rd June 1962, the Bishop of Rimini Emilio Biancheri consecrated the New Church of San Rocco. (Fifth and last, definitive seat).

The building of the parish church, a point of reference for residents and tourists from all over the area of the mouth, is today a beautiful example of itself, always on the side street leading to the Cemetery, for its modernly expressive style even if not everyone likes it.

In the new church, in a series of chapels on the left-hand side of the nave, various paintings have been placed, such as those having as subject the titular saint of the parish, made in western Liguria in the 18th century and depicting Saint Roch fed by the dog, Saint Roch healing the plague victims, Saint Roch before the Pope, Saint Roch preaching, Saint Roch distributing alms to the poor and Saint Roch in prison comforted by the angel.

(texts elaborated by various Authors; source of the images: private, Group and WEB archives)