The Cretaceous-Palaeocene Casanova Complex occurs in two thrust sheets of the eugeosynclinal Ligurids of the Northern Apennines. It is a sedimentary mélange with ophiolitic and quartzose turbidites or limestone-shale olistostrome (submarine debris flows) as matrix. Exotic blocks of ophiolite and granite, serpentinite breccias and lenticular ophiolitic breccias and olistostromes contribute to the mélange character of the complex. Deformational structures include soft-sediment slump folds (indicating a SW-dipping palaeoslope) and boudins, a gradational slumped top to the mélange, small-scale faults in chert blocks and deformation associated with the emplacement of the exotic slide blocks. The blocks were shed as rotational slides from submarine fault scarps and are surrounded by haloes of debris created by submarine weathering. The stacking pattern of the blocks, with the originally stratigraphically highest ophiolite lithologies lowest in the pile of blocks, is explained by a diverticulation model with progressively deeper erosion. Mechanical analysis shows that the blocks were stable when partly exposed resting on a soft sediment substratum. Criteria which distinguish the Casanova Complex from a tectonic mélange, and which may be of value in other mélanges, are discussed. Previous interpretations of the complex as a precursor olistostrome to northeastward nappe emplacement (the Bracco ridge model) are rejected. The mélange is believed to have formed on ocean crust as a result of turbidite and debris flow sedimentation, soft sediment deformation, block faulting, gravity sliding and submarine erosion at the distal edge of a uniformly SW-dipping continental margin.