The medieval village developed on the banks of the Bormida. In the Middle Ages Carcare was an important road junction because of its position on the crossroad where the roads converged that came from the north and the west to join together and continue to the sea. Of probable Roman origin, it belonged to Bonifacio del Vasto (1091) and in 1142 went to the Del Carrettos of Savona, then marquises of Finale, following its vicissitudes. In 1621 the College of the Scolopi was founded there, with innovative criteria of free schooling for everybody; in 1833 it was rewarded by King Carlo Alberto with the title of “Royal College.” The prestige of the school attracted many characters, among them Goffredo Mameli (who it seems wrote the text of the Italian national anthem there) and a group of painters that in the second half of the 19th century gave life to the “Grixi School”, which drew inspiration from the Val Bormida landscape. In the later eighteenth century and early nineteenth century Càrcare was a theatre of Napoleonic battles.
