School of the Ursulines

In the eighteenth century an otium villa was built by the ingauna noble family of the Borea Ricci. In France, following the Combes law of 1903, a period of secularization of the state began where Catholic schools were closed and the nuns who taught there could choose between following the path with a secular life or moving. So it happened for 14 Ursuline nuns (called Ursulines de Jesus in France) who left Saint Tropez and got off the train in Albenga on 31 July headed to the Villa of San Fedele, guests of the Marquis Borea Ricci. At that time the structure was one of the country villas of the Albenganian nobility built in the previous centuries, a 3-storey house with a turret, probably an older structure that underwent modifications during the 19th century. After a few months, on 29 September the courses began with the first 16 French students, to which 7 Italian students were added on 1 October. The Villa, meanwhile called Villa Giulia, is transformed into a female training institute taking the name of Villa Sacro Cuore where the girls were guaranteed a path that led them from the nursery school to the teaching institute. In an article in the weekly Pro Familia of 1909, the structure was advertised as follows: Colleggio Female Boarding School in S. Fedele d'Albenga, directed by the Ursulines of Jesus. Excellent religious and civil education - Study courses in Italian and French given by authorized teachers - Preparation for complementary and normal licenses; according to government programs - music, drawing, painting, etc ... Splendid, elevated position, view of the sea, healthy air, mild climate, moderate straight line. Ask the Director for the program.

The first extension of the building dates from these years, with the raising of two floors of the structure. In 1936 the legal recognition of the middle school and the teaching institute arrives. In 1955 the first orphans of the Guardia di Finanza were welcomed.

In recent years the complex underwent a major expansion, creating new classrooms, new rooms and even an internal church in a modern style not in line with the existing one, which however is preserved.

In the following years both nuns and enrollments decreased, although in the meantime the courses also became accessible to males: the middle school was moved to Albenga in 1987 to be closed three years later. On November 21, 1991, the community dissolves. Some nuns decide to keep the task by moving to Loreto or Turin. Others prefer to stay in this place where they lived part of their lives, residing in the Villa San Marco, a building inside the complex. However, the religious did not stop their work completely, remaining active within the community, helping families and being very active in parish activities.

Meanwhile, the main building is being sold to private individuals to find a new life as a residence. In 2009 a project was made in agreement with the superintendent to demolish the modern part while preserving the historical one, with the creation of a widespread village that could be in line with the structure of the village of San Fedele. However this project will never come to an end [8]. Now abandoned to itself, the structure is in decline, occasionally becoming a meeting place for the homeless and socially marginalized.

The school of the Ursulines

In October 2003 the centenary of the presence of the sisters in the community was celebrated [9]. In October 2017, the last 3 sisters also left San Fedele, where with a mass, the bishop of Albenga Guglielmo Borghetti, thanks for the work done in over a century in the community of San Fedele. One nun retired to the rest home of the Cottolengo Sisters in Moncalieri, another to the community of the Consolata Sanctuary in Turin and the third remained in Albenga. On this occasion, there were many students who paid their thanks for the work done. The ex-boarding school is protected by the strict obligation of the superintendency since 2002 with the code NCTN 07/00208366.^[3][4]

Villa Costa in Pianbellino

In the hamlet of San Fedele there is an ancient villa of the Costa family, where only a little has remained, but which has been well described over the centuries, so much so that we can still see the architecture of when it was built. Privately owned and left much to itself. A massive arched portal with ashlar treatment leads into the main square to the old house and to the tower, where the chapel of San Giovanni Battista and a short side of the destroyed villa of Piambellino overlook. After a part of noble gardens intended for the family, there was a part of vegetable gardens, vineyards, olive groves, land cultivated with wheat, houses of peasants and servants. Particular was the tower-belvedere, flanked by a terrace with a brick floor, perhaps a part that remained from the first loggia of the entrance to the courtyard. Under the road, the current provincial SP6, there was the exedra with meadows planted with fruit trees, the vineyard of marvasia and the ditches.

Between the end of the 16th century and the first half of the 18th century the brothers of the noble Ingauna Costa family, Pier Francesco (1545-1625) apostolic nuncio to the court of Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy, and bishop of Savona, Alessandro (1555-1623) ), abbot commentary at the atrium of Santa Maria and San Martino on the Gallinara Island, Ottavio 1554-1639 holder of the General Depositary of the Apostolic Chamber under the reign of Gregory XIV and Innocent IV as well as a banker, and the son of this Pier Francesco (1591-1653 ) bishop of Albenga, committed many of their resources to build a place of otium that was a link between the utilitas and venustas with ancient marbles, paintings, precious and much more, to create a cultured environment. The Costa family were an important family at the time, who owned several villas in the Albenga countryside, but also resided in Rome, where among others they owned the Villa of San Martino ai Monti, neighbors of Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, for which they carried out financial transitions or intervened for purchases of art objects.

The seat of the villa was a land where there was probably some structure already in previous times, an area rich in water, the ventilated and shaded position in summer. Already in the mid-fifteenth century there were purchases of land by the Costa family in the area, often close to the property of the abbey of San Marino on the Gallinara Island, which over the centuries was often ruled by members of the same family. On 6 July 1562 the large villa in Pianbellino was purchased, paid 600 scudi to Mr. Bernardo Riccio, by the guardian of the family. The great work of the Costa was to use the art of gardening and arboreal, aimed at creating a complex of considerable importance. It was all based on the previous geometry, where there were already pebble walls of rivers. We are fortunate that the historian Gio Ambrogio Paneri provides us with an admired description of the villa: San Fedele with a hundred fires of beautiful ornate townhouses, with a large palace of ancient jeweled statues and precious adorned paintings to which it is spacious and pleasant annex garden, with vague compartments of land, from limpid and crystalline irrigated sources, of the lords Pier Francesco, Ottavio and Alessandro Costa. From this period there is the production of an ink and watercolor drawing by Bernardo Raibado, entitled Villa di Piambellino of the century. XVI-XVII, where it is noted that the building acts as a cornerstone for the adjacent properties.

During the 1800s, the historian Giuseppe Cottalasso, transcribed a series of tombstones and inscriptions that were kept in the ancient palace of the Costa di Balestrino house, in the suburbs of Albenga, a region called Ciambellino, saying that those transcribed were handwritten copies and not that those had already been copied previously. They were placed on the pedestals of as many statues. In the drawing of the Raibado four fountains are indicated, which meant an underground pipe network the entire property.

The villa belonged to Ottavio Costa, the only one capable of guaranteeing the descent, which he did in his will in 1639 in favor of his second-born nephew Filippo, leaving Monsignor Pier Francesco, bishop of Albenga and uncle of Filippo, the possibility of free access to the villa, and to use what is contained therein, as long as everything is returned. On Filippo's death, the estate passed to his other son Pier Francesco (1639-1723) who died without leaving heirs, passing everything to Ottaviano del Carretto, his sister's nephew, who wanted to add his grandmother's surname, becoming Costa Del Carretto; thanks to him we have an inventory of the villa drawn up on February 26, 1700. On the death of Pier Francesco in 1726 there is still a list of what it was, which is given to the owner, the Marquis Domenico Donato Costa Del Carretto, son of Ottaviano , where the villa was described with gardens, vineyards, fig trees, arable land,with a pine tree, and various cypress trees.

On the occasion of the French occupation of 10 February 1797 there is a letter in which important damage to the structure caused by the military is reported. Another letter dated 18 June 1834 reports an evaluation of the property, where it is still intact. The marked poor state of maintenance of the house, which was defined already dilapidated in the mid-nineteenth century, was the main cause of its collapse, although it is likely that the last end occurred following the earthquake of 1887.

Since 1937 the villa has had the precise architectural bond, with the name of Villa del Ciambellino Bertolotto, which was owned by Mr. Gozo Candido Di Domenico.^[5] In the nineteenth century the main portal is still preserved, as can still be seen inside a part of the black and white cobblestone paving. There are still two avenues of ornate columns on the back, some of the existing houses are parts of houses that survived from the previous villa. ^[6][7]