History

The nobleman Francesco Grimaldi had the palace built at the end of the 16th century on top of pre-existing medieval structures. The building has a courtyard, overlooks two squares and has several floors. In 1599 it was included in the sistema dei Rolli, the list of Genoese residences intended to accommodate foreign ambassadors and aristocrats visiting the city. A few years later, Francesco’s son, Tommaso Grimaldi, commissioned the painter Lazzaro Tavarone to fresco the state rooms. Thanks to its prestige, the building was included in The Palaces of Genoa, the book published by Pieter Paul Rubens in 1622 to make the city’s extraordinary residences known in Europe.

In 1650 Tommaso Grimaldi was overwhelmed by debts and found himself forced to sell the palazzo to his brother-in-law, Ansaldo Pallavicino. Ansaldo inherited a passion for the arts from his father Agostino and soon became one of the city’s greatest collectors. Part of the Pallavicino collection, consisting of paintings, silver and furniture, is still preserved in the palace today. Ansaldo’s son, Nicolò Agostino Pallavicino had no descendants, and so all his possessions passed to his sister Anna Maria in 1709. Through her marriage to Gerolamo Doria, the estate will be inherited by their son Paolo Francesco Doria.

In 1732, on the death of Paolo Francesco, his sister Maddalena Doria became mistress of the building. Maddalena married Nicolò Spinola, protagonist of many Genoese political events and bearer of the name by which the mansion is known today, Palazzo Spinola. But it was Maddalena who made the building everything that ‘seemed and pleased’ her. Between 1734 and 1736 she called numerous artists to work on the second piano nobile and left an indelible mark on its rooms. He brought in mirrors from Paris, hung the paintings as they are still largely arranged today and connoted the floor with his personal taste. The facades were given a new stucco decoration in these years, which is still preserved today. The palace thus takes on a Rococo appearance, the refined style of mid 18th century Europe.

Il nipote di Maddalena Doria, Paolo Francesco Spinola, è proprietario del palazzo negli anni della Rivoluzione Francese e della fine della Repubblica di Genova (1797). In tale periodo di incertezze politiche, il nobile ha numerosi problemi di salute e non riuscirà a garantirsi una discendenza. Morto senza figli nel 1824, il suo palazzo e la sua quadreria sono ereditati dal cugino materno Giacomo Spinola. I nobili appartenevano a due rami diversi della famiglia Spinola, Paolo Francesco a quello di San Luca, Giacomo a quello di Luccoli. Gli Spinola di Luccoli saranno gli ultimi proprietari del palazzo.

Con Giacomo Spinola la dimora vive i suoi ultimi anni di gloria. Il nobile finanzia numerosi restauri e rende l’edificio moderno, dotandolo di nuove cucine. Grazie a lui, arriva a palazzo un’importante collezione proveniente in parte dai suoi antenati e in parte dalla famiglia della moglie, Violantina Balbi. Inoltre, Giacomo salva dalla distruzione alcuni monumenti dedicati alla memoria di antichi esponenti del suo casato e li porta nella dimora. Dopo la sua morte, nel 1858, il patrimonio è ereditato prima dal figlio Francesco Gaetano e poi dal nipote Ugo Spinola, che traghetterà nel Novecento la storia del palazzo.

Franco and Paolo Spinola, Ugo’s sons, have no descendants. Moved by a strong cultural sensitivity and advised by Superintendent Pasquale Rotondi, they decided to donate the palazzo and its collections to the Italian State in 1958. The following year, a new museum, the National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola, was born. Since then, the historic residence, which for centuries was the home of wealthy nobles and held works of art, furnishings and documents, has opened its doors to a wide public.

Already in the donors’ intentions was the desire to transform the top floors of the building into a modern museum space. These rooms originally housed the private rooms of the owners and servants. Destroyed during the Second World War, these spaces lent themselves, once restored, to new functions. The project took shape in 1992, when the National Gallery of Liguria was inaugurated. Its rooms house an ever-growing series of works, acquired by the museum with the aim of documenting more than five centuries of Ligurian art. Paintings such as the Equestrian Portrait of Gio. Carlo Doria by Pieter Paul Rubens and sculptures such as the Justice by Giovanni Pisano dialogue here with important masterpieces by Genoese, Italian and foreign artists.