Ameglia and its territory have an ancient history, that dates back to the 4th century BC, and that displays a maintained importance over the centuries. A
necropolis was found in this place and the objects and furnishings discovered reveal that the place was an important transportation center both towards the sea and the nearby mountain passes. It was an important center and port in the
Roman era. Traces of this period can be seen in the remains of a Roman maritime villa near the current seaside hamlet of Bocca di Magra. It was, however, in the early
Middle Ages that Ameglia reached its apex of political and economic importance. In 963, it was mentioned for the first time in an
imperial document of
Otto I, where the
castrum de Ameliae is mentioned as a possession of the
Diocese of Luni. Ameglia was chosen by the diocese as an episcopal residence, its walls fortified and reinforced, during the 11th century. In 1141, part of the
fief was purchased by
Genoa, which held it until 1252 when it entered into the possession of Nicolò
Fieschi, count of
Lavagna. Occupied for a brief period by
Oberto Doria and
Oberto Spinola, possession of Ameglia returned, by 1284, to the bishops of Luni. Throughout the 13th century, construction of the defensive walls, the port, and the tower of the local castle continued. In 1314, according to
Boccaccio in his
Epistola di frate Ilaro,
Dante Alighieri was probably present near the monastery of Santa Croce del Corvo in Bocca di Magra. In 1321, Ameglia was conquered by the
Lucchesi condottiero Castruccio Castracani, bringing the territory under the rule of Lucca. After his death in 1328, the medieval citadel passed under the influence of different lords and local families, including the
Doria,
Visconti, and
Fregoso. Genoa would reacquire the feudal rights by 1380. Over the next century, control over Ameglia changed hands several times until reaching a certain stability with a definitive acquisition by the
Republic of Genoa, in the second half of the 16th century. Ameglia was placed under the captaincy of
Lerici. With the fall of the Genoese Republic to the French forces of
Napoleon Bonaparte, Ameglia became, on December 2, 1797, part of the short-lived
Ligurian Republic. It was located in the Department of the Gulf of Venus, whose capital was
La Spezia. Reorganizations placed Ameglia in the Jurisdiction of Lunigiana in 1798 and the Jurisdiction of the Gulf of Venus in 1803. After the Ligurian Republic was directly annexed by France, the town was part of the
department of the
Apennins from June 1805 to Napoleon's fall in 1814. As a result of the
Congress of Vienna, in 1815, Liguria became part of the
Kingdom of Sardinia, where it remained until
Italian unification in 1861. From 1859 to 1927, the territory was included in the district of Levante within the
Province of Genoa and, from 1923, the
Province of La Spezia. In 1939 the
frazione of
Tellaro was detached and consolidated into the territory of Lerici. The latest adjustments to the town's territory were in 1960 when part of Lerici was joined to Ameglia. In March 1944, 15 U.S. soldiers of
Italian descent were captured by
German forces nearby after the failure of the infrastructure-sabotage mission
Operation Ginny II. On March 26, they were
summarily executed in Ameglia in violation of the
Geneva Convention's rules regarding treatment of
prisoners of war. After the war, the
Wehrmacht general who ordered the executions,
Anton Dostler, was
tried and executed for
war crimes, the first German general so tried. The rejection of his defense that he was
just following orders set a precedent for the
Nuremberg trials. In 1990, a memorial plaque was placed at the site of the deaths of the U.S. soldiers. Ameglia was affected by the October 25, 2011 flooding of the areas of La Spezia and Lunigiana due to the overflowing of the
Magra and
Vara rivers, leading to evacuations, property damage, and the collapse of the Colombiera Bridge. == Demographics ==