The Castle

The ruins of the castle are found on top of the mountain that hovers over the village at the end of Via Buranco, the oldest road in Monterosso. It was built by the Obertenghi family, the feudal lombards that ruled over all of the Cinque Terre. The castle was built to defend the village from the Saracenes and was, over the centuries, remodelled by the Doria, Fieschi and Saporiti, all Genoese ruling families. Today very little remains of the original structure, only the tombs of ancestors built inside the bastions or underground and these are the sentinels of the burying ground protected by the apse of the church of Saint Christopher that acts as the cemetery’s chapel.

​

The Convent of the Capuchins
The convent of the Capuchine friars seems to protectively watch over the quiet of the village. The shaded courtyard looks onto the coastline of the Cinque Terre and the crystal blue sea is visible in all its beauty. The convent was built in the XVth century, below the castle on the hill dedicated to Saint Christopher, on the demarcation that separates the medieval hamlet from the modern Fegina village. To climb to the convent one must use a staircase that is found in front of the Torre Aurora. Inside the convent’s chapel, dedicated to Saint Francis worthy of note are the various altars made of wood as well as a painting of the crucifixion attributed to the Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), a guest of the Spinola family in Genoa for several years.