Nicolosio Lomellino Palace — Podestà Palace
The Nicolosio Lomellino Palace, also known as the Palazzo del Podestà, is a patrician residence on Via Garibaldi in Genoa’s historic centre, built around 1565 for the noble Lomellino family. One of the palaces lining the celebrated “Strada Nuova,” it forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2006 under the collective title “Palazzi dei Rolli di Genova.” The building’s harmonious Renaissance facades and sumptuous interior decoration represent the extraordinary wealth and cultural ambition of Genoa’s mercantile aristocracy at its 16th-century apex.
At a glance
- Type
- Patrician palace (palazzo di rollo)
- Period
- c. 1565, with later interventions
- Style
- Genoese Renaissance; Mannerist decorative programme
- Location
- Via Garibaldi 3, 16124 Genova GE · 44.4111° N, 8.9334° E
Overview
Via Garibaldi — formerly Strada Nuova — was Genoa’s prestige residential street, planned from 1550 onward to concentrate the city’s leading families in a single monumental boulevard. The Lomellino Palace occupies one of the prime plots and is now institutionally linked to the municipality of Genoa. Together with the adjacent palaces it embodies the “rolli” system, a Genoese civic practice by which noble households were assigned by lot to host visiting heads of state — a unique form of public hospitality documented from 1576 onward.
History
The palace was commissioned by Nicolosio Lomellino, a prominent banker and nobleman, around 1565. The Lomellini were among the most powerful clans in 16th-century Genoa, with extensive commercial interests in Spain, Portugal, and the eastern Mediterranean. The designation “Palazzo del Podestà” reflects a later civic use of part of the building. Rubens visited Genoa in 1604 and 1607 and documented many of its palaces in his influential 1622 treatise Palazzi di Genova, which spread the Genoese style across northern Europe; the Lomellino Palace is among those recorded.
What you see
The street facade presents a regular grid of pilasters and windows on a rusticated ground floor, typical of the Via Garibaldi typology. The entrance portal leads to a colonnaded atrium from which a grand staircase ascends to the piano nobile. Interior rooms are decorated with frescoed ceilings, gilded stucco cornices, and carved marble fireplaces characteristic of Genoese Mannerism. The courtyard, when accessible, reveals the palace’s spatial depth and the quality of its stonework detailing.
Cultural significance
The Palazzi dei Rolli, of which this building is a listed member, constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognised for their outstanding universal value as a coherent ensemble of early modern aristocratic architecture. The Lomellino Palace is also significant as a document of Genoa’s role as the financial capital of the Spanish Empire in the late 16th century, when Genoese bankers effectively underwrote the Habsburg war machine. Rubens’s printed record of these facades disseminated Genoese architectural ideas to Antwerp, London, and beyond.
Practical information
Via Garibaldi palaces are partially accessible to the public; several are now municipal offices or museums. Opening hours vary by building — check the Musei di Genova website and the Palazzi dei Rolli programme for current guided access schedules, especially during the biannual Rolli Days open-house event (spring and autumn). Admission fees apply for some interiors.
Getting there
Via Garibaldi is in the historic centre of Genoa, a 10-minute walk from Genova Piazza Principe railway station or 15 minutes from Genova Brignole. Metro line 1 (Darsena stop) is the closest underground station. The street is pedestrianised; the nearest parking garages are on Via delle Fontane and Piazza della Vittoria.
Sources & resources
Find it on the map
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