Sestiere Cappelletta is partly included in the parish of S. Gervasio and Protasio in Rapallo and partly in that of S. Anna. It occupies the flat area on the left bank of the Boate stream, beyond the railway boundary and the hilly area between the Boate di S. Pietro stream and the Cereghetta stream.
The name of the sestiere derives from the chapel of San Vincenzo di Pastine that stood on the hillock dominating the Boate plain; no trace remains of this little church. The southern boundary is the Boate stream that separates the Cappelletta and Costaguta districts.
The most important locality in the sestiere is undoubtedly Sant’Anna. Until 1950, it was a small nucleus built at the point where the two main branches of the Boate stream valley converge: a few houses, two-storeyed, arranged in a single row near the small church of the same name. Today, the hamlet has completely changed its appearance and, due to its large population growth, has been established as an autonomous parish.
The centre of the sestiere, however, is the Cappelletta locality proper, dominated by the centuries-old Fiesca tower, where the chapel of San Vincenzo di Pastine, which gave the sestiere its name, once stood. The Cappelletta sestiere also organised ‘shootings’ of mortals on the feasts of Our Lady of Montallegro since the dawn of the 17th century. In the early years of the 20th century, the sestiere began to perform the Panegyric firing, and later the evening fires. The location where the firing took place was, until 1949, the brush near the mouth of the Boate, on the right bank. The midday shooting has almost always been organised on the seafront, except on one occasion, when it started from the sestiere near the Rapallo bowling alley. Ramadan used to be prepared across the Boate at the mouth. Since 1987, the night finale has been realised on a barge provided by the municipality.
