Medieval Section
The room mainly displays archaeological material from the Bastia Soprana castle in Sassello, where some excavation campaigns were conducted in the 1960s.
The stratigraphy has yielded fragments of ceramics from various origins and a fair collection of coins of different mints, dating back to the 13th century.
The Bastia Soprana dominated what was then the ancient urban core, extending towards the houses of the Villa, the Piano, and the church of St. John the Baptist.
The tower that still remains today is called "of the Saracens," from the legend that claims the town was destroyed by those raiders around 935. It is known that the Saracens destroyed the Abbey of Jesus the Savior in Giusvalla and then plundered Acqui Terme, but nothing confirms their presence in the Sassello area.
Precisely as a sign of gratitude for the help given in expelling the Saracens, Emperor Otto I of Saxony donated in 967 to the feudal lord Aleramo fifteen "courts" (settlements grouped around a church and surrounded by walls), among which "Salsole," which renowned historians have identified as Sassello.
The first document indicating "Saxellum" dates back to 1186, in which the marquises of Ponzone made the men of Ponzone, Spigno, Sassello, Varazze, Celle, and Albisola swear loyalty to the municipality of Savona.
The Dantesque Branca Doria, who proclaimed himself lord of Sassello, undertook the restructuring of the castle in the early 1300s—the excavation revealed a herringbone brick floor, and from the same period, the appearance of soapstone artifacts, completely absent in the older layers, is noteworthy; a large thin-walled container is visible in the display case.
This century represents a very troubled page in Sassello's history, amid struggles and conspiracies raging in the Genoese area, until in 1403 the Republic of Genoa forced Branca's heirs to surrender and demolish the castle—as evidence of this, the display cases show a remarkable collection of crossbow arrowheads and various stone balls for bombards (Garino cites from the registers of the massaria comunis a bombard "that weighed 16 cantari, or 760 kg, which was the largest found on the market).
The archaic majolica jug bearing the Medici coat of arms, displayed at the center of the section's cabinet, represents one of the "mysteries" of this castle: after its destruction, Filippo Doria built the Bastia Sottana castle in 1450—its ruins stand out on the hill overlooking the current town center—
and the town's settlement consequently moved from its original location inside the walls of the new castle. The jug, collected on the surface with other ceramic fragments, dating to the early 16th century, would attest to human presence in this enigmatic settlement well beyond the date of destruction, just as the current masonry structures would belong to this context.
The location of Bastia Soprana, situated on a steep spur at the confluence of the Sasselletto and Sbruggia streams and above the old mule track leading to the sea, has many characteristics of the so-called Ligurian "castellari."
By extending the archaeological excavation to the entire summit of the rock, it may be possible to shed light on part of Sassello's history, whose documentation preserved in public and private archives was destroyed and burned during the lootings of 1625 and 1672 by Savoyard troops.
The section also preserves some reproductions of maps of the area from the 1700s, a "faithful" view of the Bastia Sottana castle, the now famous map of Sassello by Matteo Vinzoni, dating to the mid-18th century, and an armory of swords from the 1800s that are part of the Perrando collection.
Arrowheads for crossbow and Medici mug
