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Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Punta Crena), Varigotti

Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Punta Crena), Varigotti historical timeline

Last updated on October 19, 2026

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This church outlived three things in turn: the harbour it was built above, the monastery it belonged to, and the parish it served. Each loss left it standing and emptier. What a visitor reaches today is a single-nave shell on the slope of Punta Crena, with a wall older than the millennium on one side and fourteenth-century Gothic work on the other, looking down on a bay that has not been a port since the Middle Ages.

Chronology

3rd-7th c. Tombs and fragments of this date are found in the area of the church — the physical evidence cited for dating Varigotti's origins to the second century A.D. rather than to the Byzantine era. A sarcophagus of the third or fourth century from here is now in the archaeological museum at Finalborgo.
8th c. The monastic site is established, or is at least already in use: the tombs in its area are probably of this century, and the record describes the church as the surviving building of an important and prosperous Benedictine monastic settlement.
before 1000 The upslope wall of the present church is built, or is at any rate older than the millennium. It is the oldest standing masonry anywhere in Varigotti and it is still carrying the roof.
1127 On 28 August, Ottone, bishop of Albenga, and Garin, abbot of Lérins, set the monastery's governance in writing: abbot and monks to be drawn only from Lérins, the bishop to propose a candidate privately and Lérins to appoint, the abbot to owe obedience to the bishop, and novices to profess at Lérins. It is the document the whole page turns on.
12th c. The church is raised and enlarged. The Lérins arrangement and the building campaign belong to the same moment, which is the clearest sign of how prosperous the house then was.
1200 From this point the church is in the hands of a preposito, a provost, named repeatedly down to the fifteenth century — so the Lérins presence did not last long after the charter that formalised it.
1213 One of the first documentary citations: Bonifacio, ecclesiastical provost of San Lorenzo, and the canons of the church exchange land with the Marquis Enrico del Carretto. The church is by now a landowner negotiating with the territorial power.
14th c. The wall towards the sea is rebuilt with its two Gothic doors, and the sacristy is given its brick cross-vault. This is the last substantial building work the church received for six hundred years.
16th-17th c. No longer a parish — that passed to the new church built west of the promontory for the population that had moved there — the old church is used as the chapel of the cemetery, until the seventeenth century. Varigotti's own monuments record instead dates its loss of the parish to 1586.
1940s A bomb during the Second World War damages the roof, which remains broken open for many years. It is the nearest this building came to being lost.
1995 Restoration works begin — the first in Liguria in which a helicopter was used to lift the materials. That single fact is the most useful thing on this page for a visitor: there is no road to the church.

Why it survived at all

A building loses its reason to exist three times and is usually demolished or quarried; this one was neither, and the reason appears to be that it kept being given a lesser job. It stopped being a monastery around 1200, when a provost replaced the Lérins abbot. It stopped being the parish when the village moved west of Punta Crena and built itself a church it could reach. It then served as the cemetery chapel for perhaps a century and a half more, which is what kept a roof on it. The bomb of the Second World War nearly ended that run, and the open roof stood for years afterwards. What saved it in the end was the 1995 campaign, whose helicopter lift says more about the site than any description of the path: the building is on a slope with no vehicle access, which is also why nothing was ever built over it. The finds went to Finalborgo and the fabric stayed.

Verified against Wikipedia, October 2026.

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Wikipedia

Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — The church of San Lorenzo rises halfway up the slope on the promontory at Punta Crena, dominating the so-called Baia dei Saraceni, natural port of the rione of Varigotti at Finale Ligure. The church is of a single nave with a square apse lit by single-light windows and a more recent part -- the wall towards the sea -- on which two doors in Gothic style open; the brick cross-vault of the sacristy also dates from the same period, the fourteenth century. The wall on the upslope side should instead be earlier than the year 1000. No longer a parish, the old church was later used as the chapel of the cemetery until the seventeenth century. The church was the target of a bomb during the Second World War, which damaged its roof, left broken open for many years. From 1995 the building was the object of restoration works, the first in Liguria in which a helicopter was used to lift the materials. The numerous finds of imperial and early medieval date recovered in the area of the ancient church, among them a sarcophagus of the third or fourth century, are today conserved at the archaeological museum of Finale, housed in the rooms of the ancient conventual complex of Santa Caterina at Finalborgo., The present church of San Lorenzo above the baia dei Saraceni is all that remains of an important and prosperous Benedictine monastic settlement of ancient origins, as is evident from the finds in the area of tombs dating from the late imperial or Byzantine era, probably of the eighth century; it was raised and enlarged in the twelfth century. A document of 28 August 1127 describes an agreement between Ottone, bishop of Albenga, and Garin, Benedictine abbot of Lerins: the abbot and the monks of the monastery are to be chosen only from among the religious of Lerins, for as long as the abbey can and will supply them; for the installation of a new abbot the bishop privately proposes a candidate to the abbot of Lerins, who appoints him if he judges him suitable or chooses a worthier person; the abbot of San Lorenzo owes obedience to the bishop and his clergy, and in case of default bishop and abbot of Lerins decide together whether to confirm or replace him; and whoever wishes to take the habit in the monastery of San Lorenzo must profess at Lerins. The presence of the monks of Lerins did not last long, since from 1200 onwards the church is in the hands of a preposito, mentioned repeatedly until the fifteenth century; one of the first citations in documents dates from 1213, when Bonifacio, ecclesiastical provost of San Lorenzo, and the canons of the church exchange land with the Marquis Enrico del Carretto., The whole Finale coast became part first of the Aleramic march and then of the territories of Bonifacio Del Vasto. In 1127 the Cistercian monks of the Abbey of Lerins settled in the church of San Lorenzo, a pre-existing monastic cenacle probably dating from the seventh century. In 1162 the march of Savona was constituted, enfeoffed to Enrico Del Carretto, of which Varigotti was a part often contested by the nascent comune of Noli. The monks of Lerins remained until 1177, when the church probably became the parish church of Varigotti -- there being in fact no news of the church until 1356. Varigotti took on importance and prosperity again thanks to the ancient port, which became an important base of maritime defence and attack for the Del Carretto. Meanwhile the population began to move from the port area to the area west of the promontory, where the settlement stands today; here a "compagna" was formed, a free association of the men of the villages with corporate power. At the same time a new church of San Lorenzo was constituted to the west, affiliated to the Pieve finalese, the old San Lorenzo above the port being by then far from the settlement. Given this westward shift, the inhabited nuclei of Pino, Giardino, Chien, Ca dei Mori, la Seva and la Monda were formed and the settlement developed along the coastal strip., Among the civil monuments of Varigotti: the promontory of Punta Crena, characterised by a centuries-old olive grove overlooking the sea, preserves an ancient Saracen watchtower built in 1559, and beside it are the remains of a convent; the ruins of the Byzantine castrum, dating from the Byzantine era and destroyed by Rotari; and the mole, named after the film director Renato Castellani. Among the religious monuments: the parish church of San Lorenzo, of Baroque forms with a late Gothic bell tower; the church of San Lorenzo overlooking the baia dei Saraceni, of very ancient origins, which was the first parish church of Varigotti until 1586; and the oratorio di Sant'Antonio Abate in the rione of Varigotti. Varigotti is a renowned tourist destination; the greatest flow of holidaymakers is registered in the summer period., The origins of Varigotti are dated by some to the second century A.D., and by others to the Byzantine era; in favour of the first hypothesis, fragments and tombs datable from the third to the seventh century were found in the church of San Lorenzo. After the fall of the Roman Empire the port of Varigotti, located in the present-day baia dei Saraceni, offered a safe landing for the Byzantine ships that maintained the links with the fortifications still active along the Ligurian Apennines and the Maritime Alps. The orography separated Varigotti and nearby Noli from the Po hinterland, protecting them from possible barbarian incursions. The port was defended with a Byzantine castrum placed on Punta Crena, while the civil buildings were placed near the port and on the eastern slope of the promontory, of which a perimeter wall still remains today. (October 2026).

Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Punta Crena), Varigotti historical timeline

Chronology

Why it survived at all

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