A palace inspired by Versailles

The Palazzo Baldassarre Lomellini, also known as Palazzo di Cristoforo Spinola or Palazzo Campanella, is a historic building located at Via Garibaldi, 12 in the historical centre of Genoa. Originally built in 1562 for Baldassarre Lomellini, a banker to King Philip II of Spain, the building underwent renovations starting in 1773 by Emanuele Andrea Tagliafichi and Charles De Wailly. The most famous work from these renovations was the 'Salone del Sole', a magniloquent masterpiece of architecture and decoration inspired by the Palace of Versailles on which De Wailly had worked.

The Salone del Sole was gutted by bombing in 1942, and later what remained of the original decorations was removed and never rebuilt. Before the 18th-century renovations, the palace featured a 16th-century façade where only a white marble portal by Taddeo Carlone survives today, bearing the inscription 'venturi non immemor aevi'.

Today, the first floor of the Palazzo is open to the public, where visitors can admire the so-called Sala degli zecchini with frescoes by Andrea Semino depicting stories from Titus Livius. On the second floor, a room with frescoes by Giovan Battista Castello il Bergamasco depicting Storie di Enea e Didone survives, alongside a room of romantic taste painted in the early 19th century by Michele Canzio.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons