History and culture: Quarries and Mines, Archaeology of production
Environment and Nature: Mineralogy

Libiola Mine

Near Sestri Levante: Liguria’s Red Giant

In the hills just inland from Sestri Levante lies the Libiola Mine, the most important copper mine in Liguria and one of the largest in Italy. Here, for an entire century, the mountain yielded its red metal, becoming a driving force of labor, ingenuity, and industrial transformation.

1864: The Beginning of the Modern Era

Modern mining activity began in 1864, when the first concession was granted to the Rissetto brothers. From that moment on, copper extraction — especially of chalcopyrite — continued almost uninterrupted until 1962. In that year, the last concessionary company, Montecatini, declared the definitive closure, bringing a hundred-year chapter to an end.

Roots in Prehistory

Yet Libiola’s story stretches much further back in time. In the late nineteenth century, remarkable tools were discovered: a wooden shovel, a stone mallet, and an oak pickaxe handle. The scholar Arturo Issel described them as belonging to “a period prior to the use of iron.” Later studies dated the oak handle to 3500 BC, proving that mining activity here began in prehistoric times. After this early phase, the deposit was intensively worked during the Roman era, confirming its long-standing strategic importance.

Nineteenth-Century Expansion and Foreign Companies

It was in the second half of the nineteenth century, however, that the mine reached its peak development: kilometers of underground tunnels were excavated, vast open-pit workings reshaped the landscape, and numerous companies took turns managing operations. Among them were foreign enterprises such as The Libiola Copper Mining Company, reflecting the international interest in Liguria’s copper resources.

A Silent Industrial Legacy

Today, the mine has returned to private ownership. More than sixty years after its closure, it still preserves imposing waste dumps, mining buildings, and numerous tunnel entrances — now dangerous and inaccessible. Libiola stands as a silent monument of industrial archaeology, where nature slowly reclaims spaces once shaped by human labor.

Fonti

Geoportale Regione Liguria_Geositi;
La Miniera di Monte Loreto, Fausto Figone – 2014, Gammarò editore

Trekking and cycling routes that may interest you

Itineraries of different durations and suitable for every taste and level of preparation, to discover the most beautiful and evocative places and panoramas of the Ligurian Tigullio.