City steps

The hilly nature of the site on which La Spezia stands has necessarily conditioned the shape of the town. The old town consists of a high area, not coincidentally called Il Poggio with the fortress of San Giorgio, and a flat area on the plain, which in olden times stood next to the coastline and the main thoroughfares.
A fan-shaped series of paths led to the castle and the religious communities halfway up the Poggio hill. At the top obviously stood the castle, and the “ribs” of the fan were the steps and paths which branched down to the strategic points of the town.
With the opening of the Via dei Colli ( originally a military road at the end of the 19th century and expanded in 1929), Via XX Settembre (built between 1870 and 1884) and Via XXVII Marzo (1925-32), housing development was concentrated on the lowest strip of the hills and the castle area. Thus it was in this period that the steps still present in the town as we know it today were designed and built. Some of them retraced historic paths, others were functional to the “new” town, as in the case of the Spallanzani or Fondega steps over Piazza Verdi.
In the names of some of the steps there are also allusions to historical situations or to the use of the territory: the name “Fondega”, for example indicates that in that area, probably near today’s Piazza Verdi, there was a warehouse linked to the ancient port. Likewise, the “Bastia” steps allude to the presence of the fortified building supporting the castle of San Giorgio, which was erected in the second half of the 16th century and is today the University campus; the name “Vanicella” alludes to a small water course, today flowing underneath via Chiodo, which used to run down to the shore from the hills beside the castle.