Rogliano (; ; co, Ruglianu, link=no) is a
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
in the
French department
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety-s ...
of
Haute-Corse
Haute-Corse (; co, Corsica suprana , or ; en, Upper Corsica) is (as of 2022) an administrative department of France, consisting of the northern part of the island of Corsica. The corresponding departmental territorial collectivity merged wi ...
,
Corsica
Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...
.
It was the seat of the former canton of Capobianco, which consisted of the 10 northernmost communes of Corsica. The people of Rogliano are called Roglianais, feminine Roglianaises.
Administratively, Rogliano replaces two historic communes, San-Columbano in the south and Chiapella in the north.
Geography
Rogliano is to the north of
Bastia
Bastia (, , , ; co, Bastìa ) is a commune in the department of Haute-Corse, Corsica, France. It is located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It also has the second-highest population of any commune on the is ...
at the northeast corner of Cap Corse. The commune is actually a cluster of eight hamlets on the slopes and heights of Monte Poggio above Macinaggio Bay, the one from which the commune takes its name being located up a winding road from the port, the Chemin de l'Imperatrice (Route D80), which is named after the empress,
Eugénie
Eugénie is the French version of the female given name Eugenia.
Eugénie or Eugenie may refer to:
People
* Eugénie de Montijo (1826–1920), 9th Countess de Teba; later Empress Eugénie, Empress Consort to Napoléon III
*
* Princess Eugenie o ...
. Forced to stop there by a storm in 1869 she found the road so bad she personally ordered it reconstructed. The other hamlets are Bettolacce, Olivo, Magna, Soprana, Vignale, Sottana and Campiano.
The commune borders the sea to the north and to the east. On the east coast is Macinaggio Bay, including a marina of 585 moorings for pleasure boats (of which 255 are for transients and the others for wintering over), a nautical club and a diving school. A little to the north, Tamarone Bay opens on the small Finocchiarola ("
Fennel
Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...
") Islands. They are protected by the Réserve Naturelle du Conservatoire du Littorala, a nature reserve, especially for safeguarding the rare
Audouin's gull
Audouin's gull (''Ichthyaetus audouinii'') is a large gull restricted to the Mediterranean and the western coast of Saharan Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''ikhthus'', "fish", and ''aetos'', "eagle", and
t ...
and
Cory's shearwater
Cory's shearwater (''Calonectris borealis'') is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It breeds colonially of rocky islands in the eastern Atlantic. Outside the breeding season it ranges widely in the Atlantic. It was formerly ...
, both of which breed there. It occupies about .
The northeast corner of Cap Corse is accessible only by a footpath, the Sentier des Douaniers, heading north from the Plage de Tamarone. The coast is dotted with Genoese watchtowers: one on the outer Finocchiarola, one in the bay to the north, the Tour de Santa Maria, which sits in the water, and one on the Pointe d'Agnello, the
Tour d'Agnello, from which
Elba
Elba ( it, isola d'Elba, ; la, Ilva) is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National ...
can be seen in the distance. Small coves abound, which have traditionally been the entry points of smugglers, hence the name "path of the customs officers".
To the northwest the path traverses the Site Naturel de la Capandula with its sandy beaches and descends finally to the small fishing village of Barcaggio, which is also reached by a winding road. Off its coast is the island of
Giraglia
Giraglia is a French island at the northern tip of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea, known for its powerful lighthouse''ll porticciolo di Barcaggio è di fronte all'isola della Giraglia, dove si trova uno dei più potenti fari del Mediterraneo.'' ...
, the site of another Genoese watchtower and a modern (from an ancient) lighthouse marking the location of Cap Corse.
[''ll porticciolo di Barcaggio è di fronte all'isola della Giraglia, dove si trova uno dei più potenti fari del Mediterraneo.'' ]
Prehistory
North of the beach of Macinaggio at Point Coscia is a partially collapsed, wave-cut grotto, La Grotte de la Coscia, containing dateable sedimentary layers. In one deposit of the
Last glacial period, a tumulus of crania and antlers of
Cervus cazioti and various
lagomorph
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (Î»Î±Î³Ï ...
s,
rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
s and other remains have been found with pebbles that could be interpreted as flakes and cores, fireplace sites and an ovate structure; that is, the most likely interpretation is that this is a site of the
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...
, the first evidence of Early Stone Age occupation.
History
The hillside
The name of the commune came from the Roman name Pagus Aurelianus, probably named after the good emperor,
Aurelian
Aurelian ( la, Lucius Domitius Aurelianus; 9 September 214 October 275) was a Roman emperor, who reigned during the Crisis of the Third Century, from 270 to 275. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited t ...
. Macinaggio was a Roman naval base. The vines on the slopes have been shown to descend from
Carthaginian The term Carthaginian ( la, Carthaginiensis ) usually refers to a citizen of Ancient Carthage.
It can also refer to:
* Carthaginian (ship), a three-masted schooner built in 1921
* Insurgent privateers; nineteenth-century South American privateers, ...
ones,
[ which would have predated the Romans, but the presence of the vines does not necessarily indicate the presence of the people.
At the top of the promontory of Trois Pointes on which the hamlets of Rogliano are located, at a height of is a tower and the remains of Castle Da Mare, home of a Genoese family that ruled the region from the 12th to the 16th centuries. Ansaldo da Mare, a Genoese admiral, was awarded the island of Capraia for his services to Henry VI and Frederick II, becoming the Signor ("Lord") of Capraia and in 1199 obtained Rogliano and started the castle. In 1200 he was made the Count of Corsica. In 1246 he purchased the rights of the Signoria di San Colombano from one of the other Genoese lords and set up the capital at the castle, now the Castello di San Colombano. Ansaldo continued to add villages of Cap Corse to it until his death in 1254. For the next 300 years or so the Da Mare's lived in the castle and provided the Signor di San Colombano.
In 1523, the Genoese nobleman, Marchese Francesco Negrone, Protector of the Bank of Saint George, married Giorgetta, the daughter of Giacomo-Santo da Mare, reigning Signor di San Colombano. Here occurs a historical ambiguity. A descendant of the Negrone's, ]Héctor Andrés Negroni
Colonel Héctor Andrés Negroni (born January 30, 1938) is a United States Air Force officer, historian, senior aerospace defense executive, author, and the first Puerto Rican graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. He was commissioned ...
, a credible American historian, claims that the Signoria passed by dowry to the Negrone family at that point. However, in 1552 King Henry II of France
Henry II (french: Henri II; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder bro ...
annexed Corsica and in the resulting struggle Signor Giacomo-Santo da Mare di San Columbano brought forces to fight for Sampiero Corso, a Corsican in the employ of the French. When Corsica was returned to the Genoese by treaty in 1559 they struck back at those they considered traitors, destroying the castle at San Columbano, called then by a populace Castellacciu, "evil castle."
Francesco Negrone immediately began to build a new Castello near the old as Signor. Many questions are inherent in these circumstances. The modern Negrone makes no mention of the reason why the castle was destroyed if in fact the Negrone's were in it and were loyal to Genoa. Some accounts mention Giacomo-Santo I and Giacomo-Santo II. Giorgetta is typically made the daughter of Giacomo-Santo I, in which case she would have been the sister of Giacomo-Santo II, and the Negrone's were not sovereign yet as a result of the wedding. Some say she was the daughter of Giacomo-Santo II, but this does not solve the problem. Another account has her the co-Signor with Giacomo-Santo II, an unlikely scenario, as hereditary offices on Corsica were not generally split and the society was partilineal and patriarchal even though women were allowed to vote and to participate in the military. The most likely explanation is perhaps that in addition to burning the castle the Genoese disenrolled the traitor from his position and made Negroni Signor instead as husband of the next heir in line, Giorgetta.
The Negrone's remained loyal to Genoa. Pasquale Paoli
Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli (; french: link=no, Pascal Paoli; 6 April 1725 – 5 February 1807) was a Corsican patriot, statesman, and military leader who was at the forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese and later ...
was unable to take the place and conducted naval operations from the small coves on the northeast coast. Hence when France purchased Corsica from Genoa and Paoli defeated having gone into exile leaving Corsica to become part of France in 1770, the Negrone's were invited in 1772 to enroll as members of the French nobility. The Signoria lasted until 1789. The Negrone's perhaps because of their isolated location appear to have escaped the terror and resulting massacre that fell on the nobility of France and they even kept their property on the hill but they were no longer signorial. The tower and the castle became of antiquarian interest only. In 1943 the castle burned in a grass fire, but most of the Negrone's had emigrated by then to France or to Yauco, Puerto Rico, whence the American branch.
In the 18th and 19th century a rise in population forced a heavy emigration of people from Cap Corse, including Rogliano, to South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
and the Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
. Those who became wealthy excavating for gold or planting and exporting coffee and sugar returned to Cap Corse to build colonial-style summer homes, now called the maisons d'Américains ("American houses").
The coastline
The harbor of Santa Maria features a church, the Chapelle Santa Maria, which was begun in the 6th century AD and rebuilt in the 10th and 12th centuries. The Genoese Tour de Santa Maria with its feet in the water dates to the 16th century. Pasquale Paoli
Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli (; french: link=no, Pascal Paoli; 6 April 1725 – 5 February 1807) was a Corsican patriot, statesman, and military leader who was at the forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese and later ...
utilized the harbor and the towers after 1761 because he could not capture Macinaggio from the Genoese. He did station his small fleet there and used it to capture the island of Capraia.
On Paoli's return from 21 years of exile in 1790, landing at Macinaggio he is said to have kissed the ground on which he stood and proclaimed that he left a slave but returned a free man.[ The words and event are commemorated by a plaque. Due to the course of history he was able to retain neither the sentiment nor the island residency.
Rogliano has served also as a commercial port and was the chief fishing port of Corsica in 1865.
]
Population
Genoese towers
On the territory of Rogliano are four Genoese towers:
* Torra d'Agnellu
* Torra di Finochjarola
* Torra di Roglianu
* Torra di Santa Maria Chjapella
Economy
The commune includes of vines, which are used in the production of wine.
A number of windmills are shared with the neighboring commune of Ersa. Featuring 20 Nordex propellors of diameter.
See also
*Communes of the Haute-Corse department
The following is a list of the 236 Communes of France, communes of the Haute-Corse Departments of France, department of France.
The communes cooperate in the following Communes of France#Intercommunality, intercommunalities (as of 2020):
References
Image:Giraglia-lighthouse-Corsica-1900.jpg, Giraglia Light about 1900
Image:Rogliano.JPG, Hamlet of Rogliano
Image:Corse-04625-Macinaggio-Punta di a Coscia.jpg, Coscia Point, Macinaggio
Macinaggio ( Corsican: ''Macinaghju'') is a French village, part of the municipality (''commune'') of Rogliano, in the department of Haute-Corse, Corsica. It also represents the marina of its municipality.
History
Pasquale Paoli landed on July ...
. Elba can be seen in the distance.
External links
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*
*
{{authority control
Communes of Haute-Corse