THE VILLA IMPERIALI, SANPIERDARENA 



PLATES 19, 20, 21 







N the environs of Genoa, and especially at the fashionable suburb of San- 

 pierdarcna, were formerly many fine villas with stately gardens— pleasure- 

 houses of the Genoese merchant princes, who, in the sixteenth century, 

 commissioned such artists as Galeazzo Alessi, Giacomo dclla Porta, Pirro 

 Ligorio, and Annibale LIppi to build their sumptuous palaces. During the 

 last century the greater number of these have been converted into huge 

 tenement buildings, or even factories, and in place of the beautiful gardens 

 which formerly stretched down to the sea are rows of squalid dwellings and grimy walls ; 

 and only here and there some fine old entrance gateway or balustrading remains, sole evidence 

 of the former grandeur and luxury. Fortunately a very excellent series of records have been 

 preserved by M. Gautier at a date when most of the finest villas still existed in much of 

 their former splendour.^ The rigorous laws of the Republic, whilst strictly forbidding all display 

 in dress, did not extend their jurisdiction to the realms of architecture, through which channel 

 therefore the natural love of extravagance was diverted. The Pallavicini Palace, on the road to 

 San Bartolomeo, built about 1537 by Alessi, had a fine garden with square pools and a hand- 

 some grotto. An entrance forecourt, with grass-plots and fountains, led up to the villa, which 

 was embowered amidst vineyards and olive-gardens extending up to its walls. 



At Sanpierdarena were many of the best villas, all planted upon the hillside and over- 

 looking the sea, with wonderful expanse of view and bold mountain scenery. The situations 

 were in many respects not \vd\ suited to garden-making, the soil being barren and rocky, and 

 exposed to the sweeping winds of the Mediterranean in winter, and the parching sun-glare of 

 summer. Under these conditions the designers had to resort more especially to architecture 

 in order to obtain their effects, and instead of the ' bosco,' which is so generally to be met 

 with elsewhere in Italy, we find a very extensive and charming use of pergolas, in order that 

 all parts of the garden might be reached in shade. At the Villa Fransone the pergolas formed 

 long wings on either side, terminated in summer-houses, and enclosing small gardens on rather 

 sloping ground. The Palazzo Durazzo at Zcrbino had a series of pergolas arranged on terraces 

 below the casino. The fresh green foliage of the vines in spring-time, and lovely colour-tones 



' Les plus beaux Edifices de la Vilk de Genes el de ses Environs, par M. P. Gautier. Paris, 1832. 



( 57 ) 



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