THE VILLA IMPERIALS SANPIERDARENA 
PLATES 19, 20, 21 
the environs of Genoa, and especially at the fashionable suburb of San- 
pierdarena, 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 della 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. 1 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 well 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 Zerbino 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 Ville de Gines el de ses Environs, par M. P. Gautier. Paris, 1832. 
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