The Giant of Monterosso, Italy

Il Gigante is located at the end of Fegina beach, where the marina begins, beyond the parking lot. It is a sculpture in reinforced concrete and iron from 1910, the work of Arrigo Minerbi from Ferrara and the engineer Levacher, built at the behest of Giovanni and Juanita Pastine.

14 meters high and 17 tons in weight, the statue representing Neptune, adorning the splendid Villa Pastine together with a large shell-shaped terrace, bombed with the villa during the Second World War. In 1966, a strong storm weakened the giant which was partially restored. Today it looks like a trunk without arms, without a trident, without the shell and without a leg.

Only a tower remains of the Villa Pastine. Built between 1906 and 1910 on the Casa dei Doganieri, remembered by Montale, it was structured on three floors, with the side tower, a terrace, a loggia with columns, a bridge and a three-flight marble staircase. The death of Giovanni, which occurred after the First World War, brought Juanita back to Buenos Aires and the villa went into a state of neglect for over thirty years, passing from owner to owner until the destruction it received at the end of the second war.