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The English in Bordighera

There was a period at the end of the 19th century during which the English guests of Bordighera, divided among hotels and villas hidden among the olive trees, was as many as 3,000, while the local population counted about 2,000 inhabitants. This extraordinary touristic "colonization" of Bordighera created by some of the richest British families, who had chosen this part of Liguria for their winter sojourns (such as other subjects of Queen Victoria who preferred other places on the Riviera, from Cannes to Alassio) after the publication in Edinburgh in 1885 of the famous novel by John Ruffini "Doctor Antonio".

After having discovered its natural and most secret and exuberant beauties, appreciated for its excellent climate and the quietness offered by the numerous walks under olive-trees and palms (it has been calculated that the Old Town was surrounded by at least 50,000 olive plants and 20,000 palms, later sacrificed for the construction of roads and buildings and for the sale of the most beautiful palms to other cities), Bordighera rapidly became a first-class residential centre, in competition especially with Nice and Menton.

The English created a real British centre here , with their banks, agencies, shops, cultural and sports clubs, the Anglican Church, the theatre ("Victoria Hall") and also a weekly paper in English, impressing an obvious gentlemanliness and refinement to the area. Many guests came from other European countries too.

The main buildings of the time still survive today and allow modern Bordighera to preserve and increase a prestigious cultural tradition, thanks to the Bicknell Museum and the International Municipal Library.  Still functional, the Tennis Club, which has the primate of national foundation and 20 courts (reduced in the post-war period) and the Bridge Club.

The most important person of that world is undoubtedly Clarence Bicknell, at first a Protestant minister, then patron and sensible and alert scholar, refined water-colourist, promoter of Esperanto, appreciated botanist, but above all indefatigable explorer and discoverer of the prehistorical rupestrian engravings of Mount Bego, near the Maritime Alps. Founder in 1888 of the first museum of the Western Liguria, which still carries his name, he collected in his Anglo-Saxon and Mediterranean building, archeological traces of great value, beside rich naturalistic collections, then given to various Ligurian museums, according to the place of origin of the things. He published two important volumes on the local flora and some essays about the rupestrian engravings of Mount Bego, the last one in 1913.

After Bicknell's death in 1918, the institution passed to his grandchildren Edward and Margaret Berry, who used it as a centre for productive historical - artistic studies, and which resulted in the realization of the valuable guide, "To the western doorway of Italy". While Europe was going towards a new terrible war and the social - political transformations of the time had changed the fortune of the British Empire, a golden era closed also in Bordighera, at first with a temporary and then a definitive abandonment by almost all the English families.

But there were the works, the city style, now completely but probably unconsciously assimilated. After a few moments of uncertainty, the Bicknell Museum became the base of the History Home Deputation and then of the International Institute of Ligurian Studies, which still today continues the activities and the interventions, as centre of universitary archeological specialization equipped with a very comprehensive library and as main district body for the protection and exploitation of Ligurian archeological, artistic, historical and naturalistic property.

Also the International Municipal Library, meeting place for very different readers, has recently retaken the function as coordinative and promotional centre of the town cultural activities, reordering the impressive book property (many volumes are in English and they have been catalogued on a CD-ROM consultable on-line) and encouraging conferences, concerts, shows, debates, periodically receiving big groups of fans. At the end of 1999, the subscribers enroled to the Library were about 4,000. The ancient spirit maintains a program which keeps the primary utility of culture and its aim of moral and social elevation.

Having remembered the main English institutions of Bordighera doesn't render justice to other important creations and, above all, to the numerous characters who loved the city and did their own bit. For example, Fredric Fitzroy Hamilton, author of the book "Bordighera and the Western Riviera", translated in French too, fundamental historical - natural study with reproduction of documents of the foundation of the "Burdigheta" of 1470 - 71, otherwise unknown, and Mr Lowe, who gave to the city the present gardens in Via Vittorio Veneto, so that the age-old olive-trees of the garden could become public property.

Modern Bordighera came from those and other different facts and now forgotten episodes. Its British first - class cultural and touristic tradition is the main reason for its fortune.

The texts have been got from "Bordighera and the English" by Enzo Bernardini.
Translation by Manuela Borella.