Genoese salt came up the Trebbia from here towards Piacenza and Lombardy, and the Centurione, lords of the place from 1640, put up warehouses, a palazzo on the square and a wall round the village. The palazzo is still there.
Gorreto has 107 residents at the confluence of the Dorbera and the Trebbia, where Liguria meets Piedmont and Emilia. On 19 September 1953 the river came into the village and in places the water stood five metres deep; the name, they say, comes from the willows along the bank.
The patron is Saint Firmus; municipal sources do not record the date of the feast. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena, whom the Centurione regarded as their protectress: they dedicated church and parish to her in 1641, but the consecration came only in 1786, at the hands of the archbishop of Genoa Giovanni Lercari.
Gorreto has belonged to Piacenza, to Pavia and finally to Genoa: in 1819 it passed to the district of Ottone in the province of Bobbio, from 1859 to the Bobbio district in the province of Pavia, and only with the royal decree of 8 July 1923 did it end up in the province of Genoa. On 17 July 1908 a cloudburst destroyed the main road and the bridge, and the water held back against the stone bridge upstream poured over the village, flooding houses, shops and stables.
chiesa dell'Addolorata · chiesa di Santa Caterina · chiesa di Santo Stefano
Pesto alla Genovese
Compare hotels, B&Bs and holiday homes on Booking.com for your dates.
Next up: Saint Catherine of Siena, «holy protectress» of the Centurione family, Thursday 29 April
Nearest airport: Genova, 42 km away
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 29 April
Gorreto celebrates Saint Catherine of Siena on 29 April: in 1641 princes Luigi and Carlo Centurione, who regarded her as their «holy protectress», wished to dedicate to her the town's new church and parish, of which they were feudal lords.
chiesa dell'Addolorata The Doria church at Fontanarossa: a mosaic floor of twenty-nine panels with the symbols of the Passion. 
chiesa di Santa Caterina Dedicated in 1641 by the Centurione to their protectress, with inlaid confessionals of the 1400s. 
chiesa di Santo Stefano The Romanesque church that Fontanarossa calls «la saracena», already named in a register of 1523. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Gorreto, but an easy day trip away.
