Before the church there was a chapel. As early as the seventeenth century, in the settlement of Cavi Borgo, a small building dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, to Saint Erasmus and to Saint Anthony of Padua housed a chaplain who said mass only on feast days; the rest of the time the community, like that of Sorlana, depended on the parish church of Santa Giulia di Centaura, up in the hills. At the start of the seventeenth century the people of Cavi Borgo decided to build a place of worship of their own, down by the sea: the church of the Santissima Concezione on via Romana, today the parish church of the Cavi di Lavagna district.
What to see
The plan is plainly simple: a single nave with presbytery and choir, a marble high altar and four side altars. The worked marbles are the building's note of wealth; local sources date it to 1757, by which time the community of Cavi was strong enough to keep a church of its own.
The front is Genoese Baroque and was renewed in 1938: it is what you see coming along via Romana, the road that crosses the village parallel to the shore. The date that weighs most, though, is 1797, when the archbishop of Genoa, Monsignor Giovanni Lercari, split the parish off from Santa Giulia di Centaura and made it independent. The church is now the seat of that parish, in the Chiavari-Lavagna vicariate of the diocese of Chiavari.
Visiting
Cavi has a railway station of its own on the Genoa-Pisa line, and from the platform the church is a few minutes' walk away, without leaving the village. This is a working parish church, not a museum: the hours are those of services, and anyone arriving in summer will find it in the middle of beach traffic, since the bathing establishments of Cavi draw people from neighbouring towns as well. Out of season, early in the morning, the village reads far better.
Our editors' tip
We suggest not stopping here. Towards the boundary with Sestri Levante, below the Rocche di Sant'Anna, the chapel of San Leonardo, once known as the French chapel and owned by the Knights of Malta until 1665, keeps above its marble altar a panel by Bartolomeo Biscaino showing the Madonna del Carmine with Saint Erasmus the bishop and Saint Leonard of Limoges. The two stops together explain Cavi much better than one alone.