The four gates of Borghetto

Borghetto Santo Spirito was equipped with four access gates through the protective walls. The “portello” or “portino” of the marina, equipped with a tower, but not passable with carts, overlooking the “zerbo comunalis”: a vast sandy space that extended for over one hundred meters from the walls to the sea. The eastern gate or gate of Loano, also called “porta del verzaio”, opened onto the vegetable gardens and orchards near the walls, while towards the sea side extended a vast swampy area.
The gate of Toirano (at the top of the current Via Diaz) opened instead onto countryside cultivated mainly with vineyards, olive groves and then increasingly with vegetable gardens and fruit-bearing plants.
Finally the western gate towards Ceriale, the only one remaining today, almost a symbol, a living testimony to the long history of this village. Today called “della Madonna” it has remained virtually intact facing its square “u ciassà”, which slowly beginning in the seventeenth century will start to grow in front of it. This gate was called for centuries “Porta della fontana”. Through its archway one could reach the fountain located outside the walls near the slopes of Monte Piccaro, in the current Piazza della Fontana, where the waters of the “lavatoio pubblico” built in 1902 still flow today. The first two gates disappeared, demolished by the engineers of the revolutionary French Army which in 1974 had occupied the Riviera di Ponente and the territory of Borghetto, in view of the battle of Loano.