Set on the central Piazza Matteotti in the heart of the old city of Genoa, the Palazzo Ducale was for several centuries the seat of the government of the Republic of Genoa and one of the most powerful civic buildings in the Mediterranean. The current building is the result of centuries of expansion and rebuilding over an original thirteenth-century core, and now houses a major exhibition centre, cultural foundation and small museum. The earliest structure on the site, the so-called Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, was begun in 1291 to house the new chief magistrate of the city. A separate Palazzo dell Abate del Popolo was built nearby in the early fourteenth century. The two buildings were gradually merged and expanded over the following centuries to create a single great civic palace overlooking the central square. The current external appearance of the palace dates largely from a major late eighteenth-century reconstruction by the architect Simone Cantoni, who imposed a unified neoclassical facade on the assembled medieval and Renaissance fabric beneath. A devastating fire in 1777 had destroyed much of the interior and provided the opportunity for the unifying scheme. Two great frescoed halls on the noble floor, the Sala del Maggior Consiglio and the Sala del Minor Consiglio, were the meeting rooms of the larger and smaller governing councils of the republic. Their walls and ceilings are covered with allegorical and historical paintings glorifying the maritime triumphs of Genoa, with works by the leading local artists of the seventeenth century. The Cappella Dogale, a small chapel decorated by Giovanni Battista Carlone in the seventeenth century, served as the private oratory of the doge. Frescoes around the walls and ceiling celebrate scenes from the lives of the patron saints of the city, with John the Baptist, George and Lawrence among the figures depicted. After the fall of the republic in 1797 and the long period of Napoleonic and Italian rule that followed, the palace served as administrative offices and law courts. A comprehensive restoration in the late twentieth century opened the building as a cultural centre, with major art exhibitions, conference spaces, a bookshop, the Museo del Jazz on the upper floors and the Museum Wolfsoniana branch dedicated to early twentieth-century decorative arts in the basement.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Piazza Matteotti 9, Genoa, Italy

Website: https://palazzoducale.genova.it

Opening Date: 01/01/1339