Villefranche-sur-Mer (Niçard: Vilafranca de Mar, Italian: Villafranca Marittima) is a small town and commune in the Alpes-Maritimes département. Situated on the French Riviera, it has a population of just under 7,000.

History

Man has settled the site of what is now Villefranche and surrounding Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat since prehistoric times. Celto-ligurian tribes roamed the area and established farming communities on the hills surrounding. The Greeks and later the Romans used the natural harbor as a stop over en route to the Greek settlements around the Western Mediterranean. After the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, the Romans built an extension of the Via Aurelia (Aurelian Way), which passed through the settlement of Montolivo.

By the fall of the Carolingian Empire, the area was part of Lotharingia and later part of the County of Provence. In 1295, Charles II, Duke of Anjou, then Count of Provence, enticed the inhabitants of Montolivo and surroundings to settle closer to the coastline in order to secure the area from pirates. By charter, he established Villefranche as a “free port” thus the name, granting tax privileges and port fee rights that lasted well into the 18th Century.

By 1388, East Provence became part of the Duchy of Savoy as a result of the disputed succession to the heirless Queen Joan I of Naples. For the next 400 years, the area known as the County of Nice was hotly disputed between the Holy Roman Empire to which Savoy was an ally and the French. In 1543,