For two hundred years the Roman road to Gaul ran north of the Appenines and Maritime Alps, by-passing Liguria. Finally the Ligurians were conquered and a coastal road to Genoa was completed in 109 BC. The East-West route of this military road, the Via Æmilia Scauri, was complicated by the steep slope of mountains running into sea along the Riviera di Levante. Every kilometre or so an arched bridge crossed a torrente that carries flash floods from the Appenines. Generally the road ran about a kilometre inland, but it deviated to the sea at landing places, where a passing army could be supplied by ship. Every "mille passus" the road was marked by a milestone and a shrine. Traditionally the Roman milestones had names indicating their distance from the terminal city (Genoa in this case). Throughout the Roman road network, the five-mile marker - the Quinto - had a special importance. It was where travellers would stop to clean-up and refesh themselves before the final march into the city.
In the Roman era the Via Æmilia Scauri passed through open countryside and the cultivated estates of coastal villas. During the middle ages, christian churches were built over the pagan shrines. These became the parish churches of coastal towns: Nervi, Quinto, Quarto, Sturla, Boccadasse. Stone buildings erected along the Roman road served as businesses on the ground floor and residences upstairs. High walls were built around the cultivated land: orchards, olive groves and vegetable gardens. By the fifteenth century the road, which in Roman times had passed through open country was hemmed in by buildings and walled orchards. Narrow lanes (mule tracks called Creuse) crossing the Roman road, run down to the seashore on the south and climb into the mountains on the north. These too are bordered by walled orchards and mediæval stone buildings.
As we see in the 1764 map, the Via Æmelia Scauri continued to be the main thoroughfare along the Riviera di Levante until the end of the Genoese Republic. Thereafter the increasing traffic has been carried by new roads: first the 19th century "Via Aurelia"and then the 20th century Autostrada. (And a railway was fitted into the narrow gap between them and the shore.) Today only the smallest motor vehicles can squeeze through the narrow winding carriageway of the old Roman road, which is now called the Via Antica Romana. It is used mainly by pedestrians and motorscooters.
Our photographs show the scenery along the Via Ameilia Scauri. It comprises mainly walled orchards and mediæval buildings, interspersed by parish churches and arched bridges over torrente. That scenery has not changed much since the time of Christopher Columbus, who was born in Quinto. (One can still visit his family home located on a Creuse just off the Roman road.) The ground floors of many of the buildings along the Via Antica Romana continue to house family businessese, ranging from shops to trattoria, garages to specialist manufacturers. In Columbus's time, the ground floor of Casa Silva (qv), our home on the Via Antica Romana di Quinto, was the community bakery. Since the time of the Genoese Republic the buildings along the road have two sequences of numbers, red for the business and black for the residence. Casa Silva is numbered Red 9 and Black 37.
The photographs by Silvana and John document the 21st century appearance of the Via Antica Romana and selected creuse, concentrating on three adjacent parishes - Quarto, Quinto and Nervi - which have quite different characters.
The photographs will be published in a large photobook, and a pocket guidebook.