Pietro Paleocapa

Pietro Paleocapa | © Archivio Visitsavona

Engineer. Bergamo 1788 - Turin 1869.

In the engineer's project, the street that in Savona bears his name since 1867 was to represent the main city artery that connected the historic districts of Via Pia with the new railway station (which would have been built in masonry on the left bank of the Letimbro only in 1883) and which was intended to allow travelers to comfortably reach the trains by passing through a covered path, under the arcades.

Via Paleocapa thus became the link between the old medieval Savona and a far-sighted modernity symbolized by the train that made its first appearance in the city in 1868, when amid the applause of the curious Savonesi the first railway train departing from Voltri stopped at the Letimbro station at 9 am. : 46 of 18 May.

Whether on time or not depended on the point of view given that the railway in Savona had been talked about for about twenty years and finally the gossip and the projects had found a reality, opening the road (obviously railway) to a new era for trade and travel. in a world that was beginning to significantly increase its scale thanks to the "Steel Horse" which already covered enormous distances in a (relatively) short time.

Paleocapa's fame also became international when he obtained some assignments abroad, including consultancy for the regulation of the waters of the Danube near Budapest and Tisza in Romania, on the Danube delta.

Taken from "Filing cabinet of illustrious men in Savona" by Ernesto Baldassarre and Renato Bruno with the kind concession of the Savonese Society of Homeland History