Formerly named ‘St. Nazaire’, in memory of the Roman centurion martyrised by Nero, Sanary was originally a simple sanctuary, founded around the year 1000 A.D. by the monks of the monastery of Saint Victor, in Marseille. At the time, St. Nazaire lived from fishing and agriculture. In 1688, Louis XIV granted Sanary independence from the town of Ollioules, on condition that the latter’s galleys be allowed to put into port there and conferred upon this new community the name of ‘St. Nazaire’, with a coat of arms bearing two palms placed underneath a cross. It was not until 1890 that ‘St. Nazaire’ finally became ‘Sanary’. Before the First World War, Sanary was a traditional place of rest for many French, German and Austrian intellectuals such as Berthold, Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Arthur Koestler, Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler, etc. Today a resolutely modern town, Sanary has preserved all the traditional beauty and quality of life of times past.