The old village of Balestrino
The old village of Balestrino is today a ghost town, located in the province of Savona, Liguria.
It was abandoned after that in 1962-63 there were many landslides that forced the population to move towards the valley.
Background of Balestrino.
The history of Balestrino is old and the first human settlements in the area date back to the Paleolithic. At the time of the Holy Roman Empire, instead, the Roman army for the control of the territory was forced to clash often with local people, and so it built on the surrounding rocks fortifications and defensive towers. One of the latter is the rock tower on which the Burgus Plebis Balestrino was born.
In the Dark Ages there was an exponential growth of agriculture. In the ninth century it became a possession of the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro dei Monti in Toirano, while in 1091 it was taken under the control of Bonifacio del Vasto.
The Bava were the first lords of the feud of Balestrino, later the feud became possession of the marquesses Del Carretto of Finale.
These ones, about in the middle of the sixteenth century, built a castle that is still visible today. Passed by inheritance to the marquess Pirro II Del Carretto, he created a new and autonomous family branch, that is the Del Carretto of Balestrino.
In Balestrino although over the years there were not few disagreements, including uprisings of the people against the feud, however there was a period of economic expansion during which there were built soap factories, furnaces, mills and crushers.
And so Balestrino became the economic capital of the entire valley, managing to remain independent from the Republic of Genoa, which at that time owned the surrounding lands.
During 1735 the estate passed to the Kingdom of Sardinia, with regard to the Del Carretto family they kept only some marginal feudal rights. Starting from 1801 it passed through many different owners, to then become part of the Pollupice Mountain Community from 1973 to 31st December 2008, before moving in 2009 to the Ponente Savonese Mountain Community. Today Balestrino belongs to the Union of municipalities of the Riviera of palm and olive trees.
Architectures and various curiosities
Among the different architectures the following are prominent:
- The Castle of the Del Carretto, is a huge medieval building which was built between 1515 and 1559 by the marquess Pirro II Del Carretto and then there were made architectural changes by his descendant Domenico Del Carretto. The magnificent castle overlooks the ghost village.
- The ruins of the castle of the family Bava in the hamlet of Bergalla.
- The Rural Church of St. George in the hamlet of Poggio.
- The Parish Church of St. Andrew in the hamlet of Poggio.
In the old village of Balestrino, there were filmed some scenes of the movie Inkheart – The legend of the heart of ink, in 2008.
In 2013 the access to the old town had to be closed with three strong railings, due to the danger of collapses. Fortunately the works of restoration of the village began in 2015.