The post offices of Sanremo

In the course of time, like other public offices, the Post Office moved around the city.

According to Giuseppe "Pipin" Ferrari, the first Post Office of our town was housed in a basement of Via Volturno in 1861, but this news doesn't seem reliable, as we know stamps of Sanremo already from the Napoleonic period, so an office somewhere must have existed, and he probably refers to an office of the Kingdom of Italy.

What is certain is that at the end of the 19th century, in Corso Garibaldi, in that low building between the Protestant church and the Distretto Militare (next to the Chiesa degli Angeli) there was a long row of shops and businesses, one of which was the first Office of the Regie Poste, branch of Sanremo, with three employees: Bestagno Giuseppe, Verrando Onorina and Vercesi Ernestina.
This is evidenced by a carnivalesque picture, with the inscription above the Office in the background. It is dated 1909 but is certainly a later date.
The low building on Corso Garibaldi where the Post Office used to be was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Flower Market.

In 1900, the main Telegraphic Post Office was moved to the premises in Via Roma 14 bis, and managed by Cav. Giovanni Rodi.

The low building is the same that later housed an auction house, then the treasury of the Banca Popolare di Novara until 1966-67, and then of the Banco di Roma until 2010.

The coat of arms above the entrance is the same as it is today.

The Regie Poste headquarters in Via Roma continued its activities until it was transferred to the new building in 1937.

The new Post Office building, which is still in use today, was built between 1937 and 1939, under the administration of Podestà Giovanni Guidi, to a design by Cesare Bazzani who was an exponent of a certain monumental classicism as an alternative in Italy to the Art Nouveau architecture of the beginning of the century (1900).

He also signed the project for the similar Post Office building in Imperia (1933).

(Sources: Roberto Colombo, web research; private images).