Bonifacio

Bonifacio faces the Strait of Sardinia from a drowned inlet on Corsica’s limestone coast. The natural harbour lay below a narrow promontory, while the old town occupied the cliff above it; a single road or stair could connect the port with the sheltered settlement. This small, defensible site gave Genoese fleets a useful station between Corsica and Sardinia and made the town dependent on the sea as much as on the interior.

Genoa took Bonifacio in 1195, expelled most of its inhabitants and settled Ligurian families there. Its podestà governed a fortified port whose ships, salt works and coral fishery served routes across the western Mediterranean. Aragon repeatedly tried to break the town’s loyalty to Genoa, including a long siege in 1420, but its walls held. Plague in 1523 and 1529 destroyed much of the population; Ottoman corsair Dragut captured and sacked the weakened town in 1553. It returned to Genoa under the peace of 1559.

Bonifacio remained a Genoese stronghold through the eighteenth century, guarding the southern passage while its people drew a livelihood from fishing, salt, shipping, and the thin soils behind the cliffs. Corsica became French in 1768.