Founded by one of the most powerful tribes in western Liguria, Albenga became the important Roman municipium of Albingaunum. The most economically and culturally vibrant period began in the 11th century, when the city became a free municipality. The activity can be carried out in a playful form with a team-based course in which children will have pictures to find and index cards with questions. The historic center of Albenga, rich in artistic and cultural testimonies of great value, turns out to be a true open-air museum because of the wealth of architecture and monuments it holds. The Ingauno Civic Museum (free admission) is housed in the Old Town Hall (14th cent.), with an open loggia on the first floor and a mullioned tower. It contains epigraphs from Roman and Byzantine times, sculptures, relics and medieval units of measurement. The charming ancient heart of the city, with an intense medieval character, preserves numerous towers and has an urban layout that traces that of the Roman city. During the educational outing to Albenga we will discover the Cathedral, a building of Romanesque origins that has been remodeled several times and preserves precious sculptures and a late Gothic bell tower with mullioned and three-mullioned windows. Behind, on the collected Piazzetta dei Leoni, adorned by three Renaissance stone lions, the medieval Costa dwellings overlook.
A guided tour of the Baptistery or a Museum can also be arranged (admission fee):
The Baptistery is the principal early Christian monument in Liguria (first half of the 5th cent.); it encloses the magnificent mosaic dedicated to the Trinity and the Apostles (late 5th cent.), which is, with Ravenna, one of the very few in Byzantine style remaining in northern Italy. The sandstone windows, on the other hand, are valuable works from the Lombard period.
(Big History meets local history. Topics touched on include: Byzantines and Lombards, the birth of the Communes, Guelphs and Ghibellines, medieval towers, struggles between Communes and Empire. The Romanesque and the Gothic)
