Finalborgo Culture

The oldest trade here is wool, not stone. The cult of san Biagio, protector of wool carders, is probably one of the oldest of the Finale, and the production and trade of torselli lanici is a traditional Finalese activity first documented in 1128, in Genoa's customs regulation, where the inhabitants of Finale appear as exporters of wool and hemp.

The convent is the cultural institution, and it holds three things. Santa Caterina houses the Museo Archeologico del Finale, open since 1931 and documenting over 350,000 years of human presence in this territory; the Biblioteca mediateca Finalese, with over 170,000 volumes; and a congress hall in what was the church, with exhibitions in the adjoining oratorio dei Disciplinanti.

Much of the basilica's art is the convent's art, moved. A good part of San Biagio's present furnishing comes from Santa Caterina — the superga of the Del Carretto — which was confiscated first by Napoleon and then by the Italian government in 1864 for civil uses. The funerary monument of the last Del Carretto marquis was carried into San Biagio in 1805, when the convent church was taken to billet troops.

Music has its own society and its own opera. The Società Filarmonica di Finalborgo is conventionally dated to 1826, and the opera L'Empirico ed il Masnadiero was written in 1845 specifically for performance at the Teatro Aycardi, by Ligurian artists of the local Accademia Filarmonica.

Verified against Wikipedia, October 2026.

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Checked against Wikipedia — The basilica collegiata di San Biagio is a Catholic place of worship situated in the historic urban nucleus of Finalborgo, in piazza San Biagio, at Finale Ligure in the province of Savona; it is the seat of the parish community of the same name of the vicariate of Finale Ligure-Noli of the diocese of Savona-Noli. In April 1949 Pope Pius XII elevated it to the dignity of minor basilica. The cult of san Biagio, protector among others of wool carders, is probably one of the most ancient of the Finale; the production and trade of wool bales is a traditional activity of the Finalese, documented for the first time in 1128 by the customs regulation of Genoa, in which the inhabitants of Finale appear as exporters of wool and hemp. The church, however, appears for the first time in a written document only in 1261; a shelter for the sick was annexed to it but no ruin of it remains. The ancient church, whose origin is unknown, was placed on the other side of the Aquila torrent, but was rebuilt within the perimeter of the walls of Finalborgo in 1372-1375, in Gothic style. Damaged in the late sixteenth century following the second invasion of the marquisate of Finale by the Republic of Genoa, and by then inadequate in size, the Gothic church was almost entirely demolished in the middle of the seventeenth century to make space for a new building then under construction, but with its plan rotated by 90 degrees. The apse and the apsidal chapels of the fourteenth-century church have been partially conserved in the short space between the seventeenth-century building and the walls of the Borgo. The new church, built between 1633 and 1650 to a design by the Finale architect Andrea Storace, has a Latin-cross plan divided into three naves with a central dome, and it conserves the original and characteristic octagonal bell tower with slender bifore., Finalborgo is the seat of the "Societa Filarmonica di Finalborgo", conventionally founded in 1826. The Biblioteca mediateca Finalese is housed at the conventual complex of Santa Caterina at Finalborgo, with over 170 thousand volumes. The Museo archeologico del Finale, opened in 1931 in the restored conventual complex of Santa Caterina at Finalborgo, conserves important prehistoric archaeological finds documenting over 350,000 years of human presence in this territory of the Finale., The new church of San Biagio was enriched with paintings and statues and decorated from the Baroque-Rococo period onward. A good part of its present furnishings, however, comes from the conventual complex of Santa Caterina, the "superga" of the Del Carretto, which was confiscated first by Napoleon Bonaparte during the Ligurian Republic and then by the Italian government in 1864 for civil uses. The walls were subsequently frescoed and stuccoed thanks to the work, in 1878, of the painters Francesco Semino and Domenico Buscaglia -- frescoes of the dome and of the presbytery vault -- resumed in 1911 by Luigi Gainotti and Antonio Bertolotto in the vault. Above the middle portal can be admired the funerary monument of Sforza Andrea Del Carretto, last marquis of the Carretto family, a work commissioned by his heir Giovan Andrea Doria and transported into San Biagio only in 1805, when the church of Santa Caterina was confiscated by Napoleon Bonaparte and used to billet troops; the statue is the work of Battista Orsolino, of the sculptural school of Taddeo Carlone. To the left of the portal is the baptismal font; the basin and the balustrades were made by Girolamo Bocciardo in 1798, while the statues of Gesu Cristo and San Giovanni Battista are a neoclassical work of 1811, the first and only work in marble by a sculptor in wood, the Genoese Angelo Olivari. To Girolamo's father, Pasquale Bocciardo, is attributed the curious and fanciful marble pulpit of 1764-1765, in which he carved the Vision of Ezekiel with the divine chariot and the tetramorphs. In the presbytery, the marble balustrade with angels is the work of Pasquale Bocciardo, in which four figures of angels support the cloth decorated with fine burin work; Pasquale Bocciardo is also the author of the high altar of 1799, during whose making he was helped by his uncle Andrea Casareggio, with whom he shared the workshop in via Giulia in Genoa. The famous peculiarity of this altar is the drape of the table, which seems to be of embroidered cloth but is in reality pure marble., The Teatro Aycardi was inaugurated in 1804 and is the oldest nineteenth-century theatre of the Ligurian Ponente. It was obtained from the pre-existing oratory of the Padri delle Scuole Pie to a design by Nicolo Barella, and had a capacity of 250 persons distributed in twenty-four boxes and a small stalls. For performance at the Aycardi the opera "L'Empirico ed il Masnadiero" was specially written in 1845 by Ligurian artists of the local Accademia Filarmonica. In 2024 the structure reopened to the public, after recent conservation works on the roofs and the facade. In via Brunenghi in the locality of Altino, where the old boundary between the Borgo and the Marina of Finale passed and where the change of horses was, there is a small seventeenth-century military building. (October 2026).