What we today call the Royal Palace is actually a grand patrician residence built, expanded over time, and splendidly decorated not only by the Savoy family in the nineteenth century but also by two great Genoese dynasties: the Balbi (who constructed it between 1643 and 1650) and the Durazzo (who expanded it between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries).
The palace is perhaps the largest 17th-18th century architectural complex in Genoa that has preserved its representative interiors intact, including both fixed decorations (frescoes and stuccoes) and movable ones (paintings, sculptures, furnishings, and objects).
The vaults of the salons and galleries are frescoed by some of the most important names of Baroque and Rococo decoration. Among the more than one hundred paintings displayed in the rooms are works by the best Genoese artists of the seventeenth century alongside masterpieces by Bassano, Tintoretto, Luca Giordano, Anton Van Dyck, Ferdinand Voet, and Guercino.
The visit includes the monumental atrium with eighteenth-century stuccoes, the honor courtyard, the hanging garden, and the noble apartment on the second floor featuring spectacular representative rooms such as the Throne Room, the Ballroom, and the Hall of Mirrors.
By reservation, it is also possible to visit the Apartment of the Hereditary Princes, also known as the Duke of the Abruzzi’s Apartment, arranged by the Savoy family on the First Noble Floor of the palace: this remarkable example of a royal apartment still preserves intact 19th-century furnishings, fabrics, and decorations.
Information about the Royal Palace Museum in Genoa
Via Balbi, 10
16126 Genoa (Genoa)
010 2710236
pal-ge@beniculturali.it
https://www.palazzorealegenova.beniculturali.it/
Source: MIBACT
