Stella is a small comune in the Ligurian Apennines, made up of several distinct hamlets: San Giovanni, perched on a small mountain pass; Santa Giustina on the southern slope of the Colle del Giovo (516 m); San Martino; and Corona. Set among lush woodland, it is a quiet and restful corner of inland Liguria, a world apart from the busy coastal Riviera below and almost entirely unknown to the tourists who crowd the beach towns.
The town has a layered medieval history. In the tenth century it came under the jurisdiction of branches of the Aleramici dynasty, who built a castle in San Giovanni — only a few ruins survive today. Stella was long disputed between Genoa and Savona: Genoa attacked it in 1225 but did not gain full control until 1390–93. A fierce territorial conflict with Albisola in the fifteenth century was not resolved until 1482.
Stella's most famous son is Sandro Pertini, the seventh President of the Italian Republic (1978–1985), a socialist politician and resistance hero who was imprisoned by Mussolini for fourteen years before joining the partisan resistance. His birthplace in San Giovanni is a museum that opens at weekends. The parish church of San Martino contains wooden statues by the Genoese sculptor Anton Maria Maragliano and an 18th-century fresco. Above Stella, the Beigua Natural Regional Park occupies the high ridge of the Apennines — a UNESCO Geopark with ridge-walking and views from the summit across to Corsica on clear days.