A farming village in a beautiful panoramic position on the ridge between the valleys of the Merula and Lerrone. Probably a Roman castrum, it was defended in the Middle Ages by the castle of Monte Arioso (thirteenth century), of which few traces remain. The fief, cited as Texticum, belonged to the bishops of Albenga, who sold it to the Doria in 1398. It was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia in 1735. Its strategic position resulted in its being attacked by Napoleon’s troops in 1796. The parish church of Santi Pietro e Paolo, built in the baroque style in the seventeenth century, contains a fine seventeenth-century altarpiece and eighteenth-century frescoes on the vault and in the baptistery. It is ringed by woods and pastures.