16 
ALASSIO AND ITS FLORA 
Ingauni io take refuge and hide themselves 
in the mountains. It is to this continual 
succession of massacres, destruction and 
flights, etc., that we attribute the origin 
of Alassio as it appeared in the beginning 
of A. D. 900 on the hill still called the 
Castello or Madonna delle Grazie. 
In the beginning of the year 1000 came 
the Benedictines and founded on the island 
of Gallinaria the Abbey of Santa Maria 
and San Martino, as well as the priory of 
Santa Croce on the cape of that name, the 
ruins of which church are still to be seen 
on the promontory to the east of Alassio. 
Profiting by the receding of the sea they 
built a church under Belvedere behind the 
modern town, and dedicated it to SanfAm- 
hrogio. The small size of the village, the 
ignorance of the people, and the great 
esteem in which the clergy were then 
held, were the causes that gave the civil 
and political supremacy over the new town 
into the hands of the monks of Gallinara. 
But 
Human and beautiful things fade and pass away 
