A group of around forty late Renaissance and early baroque aristocratic palaces along three streets in the historic centre of Genoa, the Rolli Palaces were inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2006 as one of the most architecturally distinguished concentrations of Italian aristocratic urban architecture surviving from the period of the Genoese Republic. The principal streets include Via Garibaldi, Via Balbi and Via Cairoli, with the central Via Garibaldi providing the most spectacular single concentration of buildings. The Rolli Palaces take their name from the official Rolli registers maintained by the Senate of the Republic of Genoa between 1576 and 1664. The registers listed the various private palaces of the city aristocracy that were available to host visiting heads of state, ambassadors and other distinguished visitors. The various families competed energetically for the right to host the most important visitors, with the resulting cycle of palace construction and decoration providing one of the principal artistic stimuli of late Renaissance Genoa. Via Garibaldi, originally known as the Strada Nuova, was laid out between 1551 and 1567 by the architect Bernardino Cantone as a completely new street through the medieval fabric of the city. The street was conceived from the outset as a parade ground for the most ambitious palaces of the new generation of Genoese aristocrats, with each family commissioning a full-block palace of three or four storeys around an open central courtyard. The principal palaces along Via Garibaldi include the Palazzo Doria Tursi at number nine, designed in 1565 by Domenico and Giovanni Ponzello and now serving as the seat of the Mayor of Genoa. The Palazzo Rosso at number eighteen and the Palazzo Bianco at number eleven, both donated to the city by their last private owner the Duchess of Galliera in the 1880s, now serve as the principal civic art galleries of Genoa and display the city most important picture collections. The combined Strada Nuova Museums occupying these three palaces include important works by Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio, Veronese, Tintoretto, Filippino Lippi, Bernardo Strozzi and the various leading Genoese baroque painters of the local school. The combination of late Renaissance palace architecture, sumptuous interior decoration and a substantial picture collection makes the Strada Nuova one of the most architecturally and artistically distinguished single streets anywhere in Italy.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Via Garibaldi, Genoa, Italy

Opening Date: 01/01/1567