Ventimiglia - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

VENTIMIGLIA (Fr. Vintimille, anc. Album Intimilium or Albintimilium), a frontier fortress, seaport and episcopal see of Liguria, Italy, in the province of Porto Maurizio, 94 m. W. by S. of Genoa by rail, and 4 m. from the Franco-Italian frontier, 45 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 3452 (town); 11,468 (commune). The present Gothic cathedral is built on the ruins of an earlier Lombard church, and this again on a Roman building, possibly a temple. The ruins of the ancient town are situated in the plain of Nervia, 3 m. to the E. of the modern. It was a municipium with an extensive territory, and of some importance under the Empire, but was plundered by the partisans of Otho in A.D. 69. Remains of a theatre are visible, and remains of many other buildings have been discovered, among them traces of the ancient city walls, a fine mosaic, found in 1852 but at once destroyed, and a number of tombs to the west of the theatre. The caves of the Balzi Rossi have proved rich in palaeolithic remains of the Quaternary period.

See Notizie degli Scavi, passim, especially 1877, 288 (G. Rossi).