San Fruttuoso Abbey

Interesting facts

According to tradition, Bishop Prospero of Tarragona fled the Arab conquest of Spain in the eighth century and founded a chapel here for St Fructuosus's relics.

Fructuosus was a third-century bishop of Tarraco, today's Tarragona, martyred during the persecutions of the Roman emperor Valerian.

A silver chest at the main altar holds relics of three martyrs: Fructuosus and his deacons Augurius and Eulogius.

The church's tenth-century dome shows Byzantine influence; it was later enclosed in an octagonal tower with typical Genoese stone decoration.

Seven members of the Doria family lie in the crypt in sarcophagi of white marble and grey stone, a burial right granted by the Benedictine monks.

Admiral Andrea Doria had the upper cloister rebuilt in the sixteenth century, reshaping the look of the whole complex.

A flood in 1915 badly damaged the abbey, and the Italian state carried out its restoration in 1933.

Restoration in the 1990s revealed Romanesque structures and 13th- and 14th-century ceramic tableware used by the monks, now on display.

Christ of the Abyss, a 2.5-metre bronze by Guido Galletti, was placed at about 17 metres' depth in 1954 in memory of diving pioneer Dario Gonzatti.

Copies of the underwater Christ stand off Grenada, cast from the original mould in 1961, and near Key Largo in Florida since 1965.

Why it is worth it

San Fruttuoso Abbey was founded by Benedictine monks sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, tucked into a cove on the Portofino promontory that is still reachable only by boat or on foot. From the mid-thirteenth century the site came under the Doria family of Genoa, who restored the church, added a loggia with tripartite windows looking out over the bay, and turned part of the building into their family burial ground — tombs there date from 1275 to 1305, alongside an older Roman sarcophagus reused for the purpose.

To guard against Barbary pirate raids along this stretch of coast, the Doria commissioned a watchtower, the Torre Doria, built by Giovanni Ponzello in 1562. The abbey's fortunes later declined badly enough that by the seventeenth century part of it was used to shelter sheep; Camillo Doria restored the church and returned it to liturgical use in 1730.

In 1983 the last descendants of the Doria Pamphilj line donated the abbey to the Italian heritage trust FAI (Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano), which carried out a complete renovation between 1985 and 2017. The cove is also known today for the underwater bronze statue Christ of the Abyss, submerged nearby.

Good to know

About 18,000 people visit San Fruttuoso each year, according to the last count.

Getting there

6 km from Rapallo. Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA) is about 29 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

San Fruttuoso Abbey is a Romanesque religious building located in a secluded bay in the Italian Riviera near Genoa, between Camogli and Portofino, The abbey used to be under the patronage of the Genoese aristocratic Doria family, who protected it with a watchtower built by the architect Giovanni Ponzello in 1562.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0