The history of the town of San Terenzo is very ancient. It originated as a town in which predominantly fishermen lived and has maintained its integrity throughout the centuries as a typical fishing village in the region of Liguria.

San Terenzo is located just 2 kilometers from Lerici and incorporates all in one the beautiful sea, a wide stretch of beach, and the multi-colored emotions of the unmistakable Ligurian homes, in the balance between the emerald colored Mediterranean vegetation and the golden hue of the sand which brushes up against the clear colored waters of the bay.

In the Middle Ages, San Terenzo achieved a great importance due to a "Hospital" which was located there, and the memory of the Crusades is still present both in its legends as well as in the names of places such as "the tomb of the crusader" and "Orlando's rock" which legend tells us was broken in two by the fury of the knight.
The Castle also dates back to the Middle Ages as a fortress built by the town's inhabitants on top of a cliff overlooking the sea. Nowadays the Castle hosts numerous art exhibits and various other cultural events which certainly liven up the San Terenzo summers.

Beneath the walls of the castle and towards the west, there lies a very evocative promenade, which also supports the structure and the tower and ends in a little beach with crystal clear water.

This promenade also represents the actual "castle to castle walk" which leads the tourist from San Terenzo to Lerici.

The church was built around the 1600's on top of the remains of an even more antique one and is located in the center of town. It is dedicated to the nativity of the Virgin Mary and contains a tablet of the "Madonna dell'Arena" from the fifteenth century and a large painting from the end of the seventeenth century by Paolo Gerolamo Piola, formerly thought to be painted by Domenico Fiasella.

The Origin of the Name

The ancient name of the town was Portiolo (perhaps an olive oil port or little port). The name changed many centuries ago to San Terenzo in honor of a wealthy pilgrim who came from far away Scotland and settled on the coast of the bay.

After having been hosted by the town residents, he donated many material and spiritual goods to them and was thereby appointed Bishop of Luni.

He then continued his journey towards Rome but was assaulted and killed by bandits; his body was buried in San Terenzo ai Monti in the nearby province of Massa-Carrara. Even after many centuries, the townspeople remembered this good person and renamed their town with his name - hence San Terenzo. However, the origin of the name and the exact chronology of this noble pilgrim's history still remains uncertain. The oldest document which mention's the town with its current name dates back to March 6th, 1218 and is contained in the Pelavicino document.
The fortunate location of San Terenzo with its homes that rise directly from the water, the total isolation of the town surrounded by its lush green hills, made it an ideal refuge for poets and intellectuals alike.

Villa Magni

"An antique house, rough, with its feet in the water, defended

by an evergreen mountain of oak pines, with a terrace and little portico which lead to the sea. More like a ship than a house!"

This is how Paolo Mantegazza described Villa Magni during the period in which Shelley and Williams lived in San Terenzo.

The Magni house originated as part of a monastery of the Barnabite priests, but throughout the centuries changed ownership many times, being that it was desired as a residence by noble families.

Its park is currently used for several local events and also as an outdoor movie venue during the summer months.

The Characters

San Terenzo, at one point in time a small village and independent township during the Napoleonic times, began to be noticed thanks to poets like Shelley and Byron, and not only.

Percy Bysshe Shelley lived in Villa Magni, the white house facing the sea with the arched

colonnade located at the eastern end of the town; his wife Mary Shelley, author of the famous novel "Frankenstein" also lived there with him.

Not too far away in the little tower on top of Villa Marigola, Sem Benelli wrote "La Cena delle Beffe" while Paolo Mantegazza, a poet, scientist, anthropologist, pathologist and hygienist, lived in Via del Campo.

There is a stone plaque along the walls of Via Matteotti close to the church which commemorates Paolo Azzarini "Ipsilonne", as a courageous sailor from San Terenzo who was chosen to rescue Garibaldi from the Tuscan coast to Portovenere.

The very famous anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza stayed here at length and thereafter decided to live out the rest of his years in San Terenzo. He died in San Terenzo in 1910 and used these words to describe the area. "You ask me what and where is San Terenzo? I will tell you right away: it is one of the most beautiful and dear paradises that the sea conceals in its coastline, in which two lovely things were born : Greek and Latin civilization and Venus; which is like saying the two greatest joys of mankind: science and love. San Terenzo is a hidden treasure in between two blue oceans which are the sky and sea; no other bathing is as poetic or as fresh; the air is never too hot in the summer not too cold in the winter; it is an everlasting alternating of enchanting temperatures which people fall in love with. The palm trees, lemon trees and rose bushes flourish as if they were in their own house and I, like a modest and fragile human plant that I am, have also flourished here for a quarter century, hoping to stay for another quarter century. This is what and where San Terenzo is".

The town of San Terenzo rises beneath a promontory which is called Falconara (also known as Fenociaria centuries ago). This town is located at the extreme western side of the Gulf of Lerici. The antique name of the town was "portiolo portus olei", but later assumed the name of San Terenzo in honor of a Scottish pilgrim who came through. We can also find San Terenzo as a commercial reference at the end of the 1400's when the Republic of Genova was purchasing bricks and at the same time, the sand from its beaches was used to cut marble from the Apuan Mountains. Later on, Matteo Vinzoni, a cartographer, traced a map of San Terenzo from the end of the 1700's, seen as a little village which was almost entirely located between the castle, Via Trogu and Piazza Dentro which is known as Via Azzarini nowadays.

The Land Loved By Shelley

The town, situated on the coastline between two blue crystal clear bays known as Venere Azzurra and Baia Blu, had already sparked the attention of the romantic English writers back at the beginning of the 1800's for the intense blue color of its waters and its pink colored sand. Percy Bysshe Shelley would vacation there with his wife Mary and right in this village, unforgettable pages of English literature were born.

Shelley and his wife Mary stayed with another couple in Villa Magni, a white house located along the coastline, which at the time, was quite isolated from the rest of town. Shelley left San Terenzo onboard the "Ariel" from which he was shipwrecked. People say that the spirit of this romantic English poet still lives on between the inlets and the rocky points of Marinella, which have maintained their charm and bewitched this English poet. After many years, a Swiss painter named Arnold Bocklin captured the emotions conveyed by the coastline, the rocks, and the vegetation on his canvas. Other beautiful works of art which depict the San Terenzo bay are exhibited in several Russian museums and were painted by Nikolaj Nikolaevic Ge.

"I still live in this divine bay, reading Spanish plays, sailing and listening to the most enchanting music".

So wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley from San Terenzo in 1822.