The Genoese architect Lorenzo Lavagna is at the origin of Saint-Michel Basilica, a church commissioned by Prince Honoré II of Monaco for the city of Menton. Its first stone was symbolically laid on May 27, 1619, in the presence of the Prince and of Monsignor Nicolas Spinosa, Bishop of Ventimiglia. However, the construction work could not actually begin until twenty years later, following the leveling of the Saint-Antoine redoubt that dominated Garavan Bay.