The peaceful-looking villages of the Cinque Terre were not always so, and Monterosso wasn't always "al Mare". The oldest part of Centro Storico, the "old town" section of the oldest village in the Cinque Terre, is now a cemetery but was originally a castle, high on the back side of a hill, with no view of the sea.
The villages, as previously noted, date to the early medieval period, roughly a thousand years ago, which is to say they date to the period when the Roman Empire had collapsed, leaving a power vacuum in the Mediterranean. Pirates, predominantly but perhaps not exclusively Saracens, were a real threat, and as the villages of the Cinque Terre prospered and grew, each village built and maintained a castle to defend against pirate raids and to warn, via signal fire, the neighbouring villages. Even so, residents (especially women and children) were occasionally spirited away by pirates, sold into slavery and usually never heard from again.
Defense is one reason for Corniglia's location; unlike the other villages, it still sits well above the sea. And the threat lasted long enough for Monterosso, as it became Monterosso al Mare, to build a second castle closer to the sea. (Unlike the original, it still stands in good condition.)
[The "new" castle in old Monterosso.]
[Vernazza's castle.]
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Much more recently, in the Second World War, Monterosso at least was marred by the addition of a couple of gun emplacements by the German occupiers. (Mussolini's Italy was allied to the Germans, but there was an active resistance movement in Liguria, and memorial markers in the villages list the names of local men who died while serving with the partisans.) I don't believe these positions saw much actual combat, but they remain an ugly reminder of the conflict.
[This emplacement is close by Monterosso's castle, overlooking the busy harbour where tourists now disembark.]
[Second gun emplacement, a bit harder to reach.]
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