The fortress was a year old when it was put to the test. The Republic of Genoa had it built in 1173 on the western hill, at the behest of consul Ingone di Flessa, and the work took a full year; in 1174 it faced the army of Count Obizzo Malaspina, allied with the Da Passano and Fieschi families: 3,000 infantry and 150 horsemen. It held out long enough for a relief force to set off from Genoa, which did not stop at lifting the siege and also took the nearby castle from the Da Passano.
What to see
Of the Genoese garrison post, built as a defensive and lookout position over the coast, a substantial portion of original structures survives, detached from the rest and in private hands. Detailed studies have been carried out on that masonry together with the Superintendency for Fine Arts and Landscape and experts from the University of Genoa: it is twelfth-century fabric, not a reconstruction.
Inside the perimeter of the old settlement, by contrast, stands a far younger castle. It was built in the early twentieth century by the architect Venceslao Borzani for the Marquis De Fornari, in the Coppedè manner, modelled on the Mackenzie residence in Genoa: the towers and battlements are Art Nouveau, not medieval. A few private houses stand around it.
Visiting
The site occupies the first slopes west of the built-up area of Moneglia, just above the town. Both the twentieth-century castle and the remains of the fortress are private property and cannot be visited: you look at them from outside, from the road that climbs, where the outline of the towers rises above the roofs.
Our editors' tip
Our advice is to go up keeping the two things apart: the medieval fortress, of which stretches of wall survive, and the marquis's castle, which quotes that fortress without being it. Anyone who does not know photographs the battlements convinced they are shooting the twelfth century, and is seven hundred years out. Then simply turn towards the sea: working out why Genoa wanted this particular knoll takes three seconds, and it is the only military explanation needed.