The Market Fountain

It was opened between 1827 and 1831 to a design by civil engineer Gio Luigi Clerico and its location was described at the time as "in a steep area behind the apse of the church of San Siro and bordering the right bank of the Vallotto or San Romolo stream (today part of Piazza Eroi Sanremesi)".

This fourth fountain, created almost at the same time as the other three, was the centre of town life for decades.
Like the others, it always remained in the same place and was born with a square base in the centre, which had four fonanelle at the sides and was surmounted by a truncated capital on which in one of the pictures you can see a little boy, in an evident state of precarious equilibrium.

In fact, when life moved from the old town, la Pigna, to the Piano (u Ciàn), with the increase in the number of its residential buildings, its hotels and the advent and growth of Tourism, the fountain became the only central point from which to draw the water necessary for the town's daily life.

After its construction, a Convent was converted into a Public School in the vicinity, the San Romolo stream was covered over, creating a large square which, from Piazza del Mercato, in 1917 became Piazza Eroi Sanremesi, practically occupying the town centre.

There was a lot of activity around it because the open-air market took place nearby, there were many shops in buildings that no longer exist, stalls with goods for sale, but above all flower stalls that over time became fixed kiosks, recently eliminated with the revaluation of that part of the square, right around the fountain.

In the early 1960s, the monument with the statue of Siro Andrea Carli, familiarly called "Carlandria" by the people of Sanremo, after wandering around various places in the square, but mainly in front of the schools, was placed in the centre of the fountain, in place of the square base with the capital that was there before.

Since then, especially after the latest redevelopment of the square, the fountain and its illustrious guest have been a beautiful sight, and it has become a centre of visual attraction for citizens and foreign guests.