Cape Town Lens: Portofino_2019 10 28_1935

A Cape Town Castle Military Museum tagged image from photographer – HBarrison as published on Flickr.

Portofino_2019 10 28_1935

Image by HBarrison

Photos of/from Castello Brown, a house museum located high above the harbor of Portofino, Italy. The castle’s site is well suited for harbor defense, and appears to have been so used since the 15th century. According to the Record Office of Genoa, cannon batteries were constructed on the site in the early 16th century, and military engineer Giovanni Maria Olgiati drew up plans for a full fortress circa 1554. The resultant castello was completed by 1557, and, in 1575, was instrumental in turning back an attack on the town by Giò Andrea Doria. The structure was enlarged from 1622 to 1624, and survived in this form for a century and a half. The little tower was destroyed in 1798 by an English attack during Napoleon’s Ligurian Republic. The castello was abandoned after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1867, the structure was purchased for 7,000 lire by Montague Yeats-Brown, then English consul in Genoa. He engaged the architect Alfredo D’Andrade [it], and with advice from his artist friend and fellow-consul James Harris the fort was transformed to a comfortable villa without substantial alteration in its general form. His descendants held the property until 1949, then sold it to an English couple, Colonel and Mrs. John Baber, who restored several ruined sections, until they in turn sold it in 1961 to the City of Portofino / Portofino is an Italian fishing village and holiday resort famous for its picturesque harbor and historical association with celebrity and artistic visitors. It is a comune located in the Metropolitan City of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is clustered around its small harbour, and is known for the colorfully painted buildings that line the shore. Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – AD 79) referred to Portus Delphini (Port of the Dolphin) as on the Ligurian coast between Genoa and the Gulf of Tigullio. The village is mentioned in a diploma from 986 by Adelaide of Italy, which assigned it to the nearby Abbey of San Fruttuoso di Capodimonte. In 1171, together with the neighboring Santa Margherita Ligure, it was included in Rapallo’s commune jurisdiction. After 1229 it was part of the Republic of Genoa. The town’s natural harbor supported a fleet of fishing boats, but was somewhat too cramped to provide more than a temporary safe haven for the growing merchant marine of the Republic of Genoa. In 1409 Portofino was sold to the Republic of Florence by Charles VI of France, but when the latter was ousted from Genoa the Florentines gave it back. In the 15th century it was a fief of families such as the Fieschi, Spinola, Adorno, and Doria. In 1815 it became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and, from 1861, of the unified Kingdom of Italy. In the late 19th century, first British, then other Northern European aristocratic tourists began to visit Portofino, which they reached by horse and cart from Santa Margherita Ligure. Aubrey Herbert and Elizabeth von Arnim were amongst the more famous English people to make the area fashionable. Eventually, more expatriates built expensive vacation houses, and by 1950 tourism had replaced fishing as the town’s chief industry, and the waterfront was a continuous ring of restaurants and cafés.