Sanremo Municipal Casino

The birth of the Matutyan casino in San Remo took place in the first years after the unification of Italy, when the city was laying the foundation to become a great climatic and tourist center. Then the first buildings were built, intended to become places of recreation and entertainment for the growing colony of foreigners.

Historical reference

The first reading room with a casino opened in 1862. 3 years later, a reading room appeared with service in a cafe, and in 1869 the International Club began to operate with card rooms, billiards, music, a newsstand with foreign newspapers and an open area.

Repeated requests to the local authorities for the construction of new recreational areas eventually led an English company to approach the municipality in 1875 with a request to build an imposing crystal palace for major exhibitions, performances and events, which was to include gaming and reading rooms. In the same year, the Duke of Borea d’Olmo sold part of the land to the state for the construction of a casino. However, the city government did not approve the project of the crystal palace.

Start of construction

In 1880, the first plan for the construction of the casino was put forward by the Austrian Adolf Mayer, who presented a project prepared by the architect Pio Soli, which provided for the construction of a new building on the site of the former Capuchin monastery and part of the Maria Vittoria garden, in the area where the current gambling house stands. But in the autumn of 1881, the city council rejected this project, put forward by Mayer’s company, which also provided a capital of 1 million lire.

The main reason for the refusal of the city council to build a casino in the city was that many councilors were categorically against the creation of a “gaming hall”. According to the plans of the authorities and the proposals of the San Remo press, in fact, the casino was to be built not as a simple gambling den, but exclusively as a meeting place where all the most important events were intended to entertain the numerous foreigners who lived in San Remo at that time, could be detained.

New projects

In 1883, Alessandro Salle, who had already built the Deauville casino in France, put forward another project that involved the construction of a gambling house on a plot of land located between the Hotel Mediterranee and the Hotel Victoria (today’s school building next to the courtyard) on Corso Cavallotti.

The following year, he followed a project proposed by a certain Reynard on behalf of Agence Ligurienne and signed by the engineer Pisani, which simply called for the conversion of the Villa Zirio on the Corso Cavallotti, built a few years earlier, into a casino.

In 1888, Pio Soli again presented the project, proposing the idea of building a casino on the site of the former Capuchin monastery, without touching the church, in accordance with the draft plan, which seven years later would be used by the engineer Semiglia in his project. But it remained on paper.

The actual construction of the casino

In the early nineties, partly in order to adequately respond to the ever more continuous and pressing demands of public opinion, the city council finally officially came out in support of the construction of the Municipal Casino, which was to be built on the territory occupied by the gardens of Maria Vittoria.

The Matutyan administration hoped that this would put an end to discussions and disputes. After an agreement with the entrepreneur Villiers broke down due to his death, the city administration, chaired by Augusto Mombello, reached an agreement with the French businessman Carlo Fuannon, who had already built the Ostend Casino in Belgium.