Following the 2007-2010 campaigns that investigated other areas of Savona’s medieval cathedral, in 2011 excavations began in the cloister ‘dei Canonici’. This season’s investigations reached the floor levels of the rooms identified in 2011.

In the north-eastern part of the area, the excavation of structure (US 13, 49) was completed. This may be interpreted as a midden with silty layers containing an abundance of bone, pottery, and glass finds: food remains, micro-fauna, and discarded objects that had been thrown into the pit between the 17th and 18th century. The typology of the glass vessels is very interesting.
The excavation of the deep fill between the perimeter walls of four rooms – identified during the 2011 campaign – revealed floor surfaces of diverse type and clarified the topographical layout of the area.

Room 1000, to the south-east, presented a very badly-preserved tile floor in which patches of the underlying stratigraphy emerged, with at least two rectangular structures filled with dumped material. Room 1000 was probably a kitchen and had two openings on the east and west sides. The mouth of a small domed oven was found in the east perimeter wall.

Room 2000 was the one in which post-medieval reuse of the area had done the most damage to the cloister’s stratigraphy. The room was entered via a threshold in the west wall that also communicated with room 3000. The floor was made of slate slabs. A sort of paved corridor separated a small rectangular room (to the north) from a sequence of tanks and drains abutting the south perimeter wall.

During the 16th century, room 3000 was an open space providing access to room 2000. Its beaten earth floor was cut to the north by the foundations for the perimeter walls of Palazzo dei Colonelli. A brick column and a blocked entrance separated room 3000 from 4000, to the south. This room was accessed via a brick/tile threshold in the perimeter wall. The floor was paved with slabs and communicated with room 1000 via a threshold. The small room was closed to the south by wall 307, which abutted perimeter wall 177.

The 2012 excavations provided a picture of the final occupation phase relating to the cathedral cloister, that is the use of these spaces in the second half of the 16th century, immediately before the construction of the habitatione del Commissario (1596).
Between the end of the 16th and the 17th century, the layout of the area was radically altered. The ground level rose substantially, the system for the collection and drainage of rain and waste water was built, and the area finally took on the appearance it has in Gustavo’s plan (1782), where the open air function of the space is clearly visible.