Cà de Runde

Turkish pirates plundered and pillaged Ospedaletti in 1594. Some seventy inhabitants were captured and taken as slaves to goodness knows where in Africa.
Consequently, in order to tighten security, the Republic of Genoa decided to build a couple of watch towers, one of which, on the hill of the Porrine. On the other hand, the local people opted for a prayer chapel.
This chapel became famous due to the fact that many emigrants, especially those from France, returned to celebrate the 15th August, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and spend a period of prayer there.
But it was the crowded, devoted processions that made the chapel popular. Times were hard, it was the time of epidemics and pilgrims arrived from far off lands to ask for grace.
The last great pilgrimage was that of the Spanish Plague in 1918
It was decided to build on to the chapel and make it bigger. Work began in 1768 and finished  in 1817.
The supervising architect lived in Coldirodi and had to commute to the Porrine daily. After a while he decided to build himself a house on location and so Cà de Runde was born.
The third floor of the house was built after the vault of the church was completed. This fact is demonstrated by the discovery of some very light tufa stones which had been brought specifically from Ceriana (20 Km) for this purpose, thus to build the vault.
Cà de Runde has been called the house of the swallows because of the presence of swallows all around the Sanctuary in the depths of winter.
An amusing interpretation of the name of the house is that of some envious neighbours who maintain that the name comes from the presence of two rather rotund sisters who lived there about one hundred years ago.
Of course, this is only hearsay and a wee bit unkind!