| Rapallo | |
| Official Name: | Comune di Rapallo |
| Coordinates: | 44.35°N 23°W |
| Region: | Liguria |
| Metropolitan City: | Genoa (GE) |
| Frazioni: | Montepegli, San Martino di Noceto, San Massimo, San Maurizio di Monti, San Michele di Pagana, San Pietro di Novella, San Quirico d'Assereto, Santa Maria del Campo, Sant'Andrea di Foggia, Santuario di Montallegro |
| Mayor: | Carlo Bagnasco |
| Area Total Km2: | 33.70 |
| Population Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population Total: | 29030 |
| Population As Of: | 31 May 2022 |
| Population Demonym: | Rapallesi |
| Elevation M: | 3 |
| Saint: | Our Lady of Montallegro |
| Day: | July 2 |
| Postal Code: | 16035 |
| Area Code: | 0185 |
Rapallo ([2] pronounced as /it/, ɾaˈpalːu/) is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, in the Italian region of Liguria.
As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants.[1] It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiavari, 25 kilometers east-south east of Genoa itself.
The climate is moderate. Many of the villas are built in the hills that rise immediately behind the city, protecting them from strong northern winds.
The Parco Naturale Regionale di Portofino, encompassing the territory of six Ligurian communes, includes the Rapallo area.
The first settlement dates probably from the 8th century BC, although the findings have not clarified if it was Etruscan or Greek.
The name of the city appears for the first time in a document from 964. In 1203, the Podestà of Rapallo was created, and the town became a Genoese dominion in 1229, remaining under that aegis until the Napoleonic Wars. Galleys from Rapallo took part to the Battle of Meloria of 1284. On 5 September 1494, it was captured by the Aragonese, but three days later 2,500 Swiss troops ousted them.
During the 16th century it was attacked and sacked by the Ottomans and Barbary pirates. To help defend the village against such attacks a castle was built on the seafront. In 1608 Rapallo was made into a Capitaneato (captainship) of its own, as part of the Republic of Genoa.
In the late 18th century it was captured by the French who, after several clashes against Austro-Russian troops, in 1805 annexed it to the Apennins region. In 1814, the English freed it, and the following year the city was given to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont as part of the Duchy of Genoa.
In late 1917 the Anglo-Franco-Italian Rapallo conference met following the disastrous Italian defeat at Caporetto. It was decided to create a supreme war council at Versailles and to shift some French and British troops to the Italian front. On 12 November 1920, Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) signed the Treaty of Rapallo (1920), which resolved the frontier issues between them without reference to the other Allies. Italy acquired the strategically important crest of the Julian Alps as its boundary in the northeast. Also concluded at Rapallo was the Russian-German Treaty of Rapallo of April 1922, in which both countries renounced claims to war reparations and renewed diplomatic relations. This agreement marked the emergence of Russia and Germany from the diplomatic isolation caused by World War I (1914 - 18).
During World War II numerous partisans from Rapallo were shot by German occupation troops.
Rapallo has been known for its climate that made it over the years the winter residence of preference for most of the affluent Italians living in the North West of Italy. Its proximity to the coast makes for mild winters where people can enjoy easy strolls on the sunny promenade and the golfers can enjoy one of the oldest courses in Italy, opened in 1930.
Among the recipients of the honorary citizenship of Rapallo are:
| Date | Name | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 78th Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller 1988-2008[6] | ||
| 18 September 2008 | 79th Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller 2008-2017[7] |
Rapallo railway station, opened in 1868, forms part of the Pisa–La Spezia–Genoa railway.
Rapallo is twinned with:
Iquique, ChileRapallo was the first goal for the Finland Swedish author Göran Schildt's travels on the Mediterranean Sea with the ketch Daphne in 1948.
Later Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale has a poem entitled "Caffe a Rapallo" in his early collection Ossi di Seppia (Cuttlefish Bones).
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra in Rapallo between December 1882 and February 1883.
The writer Ezra Pound spent much of the late 1920s and 1930s living in the town.
The author, caricaturist and parodist Max Beerbohm lived in Rapallo from 1910 until his death in 1956, returning to Britain during World War I and World War II.
The American war poet John Allan Wyeth lived in Rapallo during the 1920s and early '30s and is believed to have written his only published poetry collection, This Man's Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets, while residing there.
The influential theatre designer and artist Gordon Craig lived in Villa Raggio, next door to Beerbohm, from 1917 to 1928. Rapallo is the setting for most of Elmore Leonard's crime novel Pronto.
The American poet Robert Lowell published the poem "Sailing Home From Rapallo" in his influential 1959 book Life Studies. The poem is about Lowell's journey from Rapallo back to the United States by ship with the body of his deceased mother who passed away in Rapallo on vacation in 1954.