Palazzo Ambrogio Di Negro

The Palazzo Ambrogio di Negro, located at Via San Luca 2 in the area of the Mercato di Banchi in the historic centre of Genoa, is a 16th-century palace built by Ambrogio di Negro, a banker to the Spanish Crown. Included in the list of the 42 palaces enrolled in the Rolli di Genova, it was designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO on 13 July 2006. The palace currently houses the headquarters of the Edoardo Garrone Foundation.

Ambrogio di Negro was a doge of the Republic of Genoa from 1585 to 1587 and an exponent of the Accademia degli Addormentati. The palace preserves an important Mannerist painting cycle, and reached its maximum splendour at the beginning of the seventeenth century when Orazio, the illegitimate son and heir of Ambrogio, took over. The building features two main facades with frescoed squares, one on Piazza Banchi and the other on the carrubeous rectus, today's Via San Luca.

The vaulted staircase rises to the second floor and overlooks the inner courtyard on three sides with a loggia. The great hall on the first piano nobile features portals in white marble and black stone with Latin sentences reminiscent of Ambrogio Di Negro's humanism. The main floor hosts a decorative cycle dating back to the late 16th century, attributed to Andrea Semino and his workshop, which covers the vaults of three rooms.

The main room hosts the large fresco with «The Rape of Helen», surrounded by panels with episodes from the life of Paris. The two smaller rooms host the cycles of Danae and her son Perseus, with Minerva and the Muses on Helicon. According to recent studies, the work is attributed to Andrea's sons, Cesare and Alessandro, and his brother Ottavio.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons