The Palazzi dei Rolli, the Genoese invention of state hospitality

Between 1576 and 1664, the Republic of Genoa did something no other European state had imagined: instead of building a state royal residence to receive visiting kings, ambassadors and cardinals, it set up by law a network of private aristocratic residences — the Rolli — whose owners were obliged to host state guests as a public service. More than 150 palaces entered the system, rising along the Strade Nuove (Via Garibaldi, Via Balbi, Via Cairoli) planned from 1558 as the first wholly residential royal quarter in the world. On 13 July 2006 UNESCO inscribed 42 of these palaces on the World Heritage list. From 2009 the Rolli Days have opened the palaces to the public twice a year.

The problem: how to house an emperor without a royal palace

In the late sixteenth century Genoa was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. After the constitutional reform of Andrea Doria in 1528 — which had overturned the rival factions and turned the Republic into a stable oligarchy of twenty-eight “new” noble families — the Genoese had become bankers to Philip II and his successors. The precious metals arriving from the American mines passed through Genoa and were lent to the Spanish crown to finance its wars; the interest returned to the coffers of the Spinola, Doria, Pallavicino, Grimaldi, Lomellino and Brignole families. It is the period that historians call the Siglo de los Genoveses (1563-1640): the golden century of the Genoese.

This wealth had an unexpected consequence: everyone — popes, emperors, kings, ambassadors, cardinals, viceroys — passed through Genoa. It was the most important port of the western Mediterranean for anyone travelling to or from Spain, Austria, Rome, Naples. But Genoa had no royal palace. The Republic was a collegial government without a prince; the Doge’s Palace was an institutional seat, not a residence. When a high-ranking guest arrived, where was he to be housed?

The solution, worked out by the Senate of the Republic in 1576, was ingenious and radically civic: oblige the owners of the city’s finest palaces to lend them to the State on a rotation, turning them into official representative residences. To avoid arbitrary choices, the Senate compiled an official list — a rollo — of the palaces qualified for this service. The owners were legally required to host whomever the Senate indicated, with staff, furnishings and kitchen appropriate to the guest’s rank. In exchange they received honours, tax exemptions and — above all — public prestige.

The Sumptuary Laws of 1576

The first official rollo was approved by the Senate in 1576 and listed 52 palaces divided into two categories. In the following decades the system was refined through new lists: in 1588 the palaces on the list rose to 111 in three categories; in 1599 they reached the maximum of 150 palaces in four categories; revisions followed in 1614 (96 palaces) and in 1664 (95 palaces in four categories).

The four classes worked as follows:

• First class (first-category ballot-box): the most sumptuous palaces, reserved for popes, emperors and kings. There were only three. The owner of a first-class palace was bound to the highest level of service: state apartments, internal chapel, kitchens for banqueting, stables for a hundred horses.
• Second class: for cardinals, viceroys, first-rank ambassadors.
• Third class: for minor princes and mid-rank dignitaries.
• Fourth class: for envoys and delegations of lower rank.

When a guest was announced, the Senate drew by lot from the ballot-box of the appropriate class the palace that would host the visit. It was a system that guaranteed fairness among the aristocratic families (none held a monopoly) and at the same time gave the State the ability to receive several guests simultaneously — impossible with a single royal palace. It was, in a sense, the first distributed system of State hotels in European history.

Strada Nuova, the first “royal quarter” in the world

To understand the Rolli you have to understand the Strade Nuove. In 1550 the old centre of Genoa was a labyrinth of medieval caruggi (the narrow alleys of the old town) squeezed between port and hillside. There was no room for palaces up to the standard of the new wealth: the old family tower-houses stood in dark lanes. What was needed was a new street — wide, straight, residential — where the families could build representative palaces.

In 1558 the Senate approved the urban plan for the Strada Nuova (today Via Garibaldi): 225 metres of straight axis along the hillside, reserved for palace-building for the “new” aristocracy. The architect Bernardino Cantone was entrusted with the urban plan; Galeazzo Alessi (Perugia 1512 – Perugia 1572), one of the leading Mannerist architects of sixteenth-century Italy, arrived in Genoa in 1548, would deeply influence the typology of the palaces with his projects for Villa Cambiaso (Albaro) and Santa Maria di Carignano.

Between 1558 and 1583 the first 14 palaces of Strada Nuova rose: Lercari-Parodi, Carrega-Cataldi, Campanella, Spinola di Pellicceria, Doria, Pallavicino-Cambiaso, Podestà (Nicolosio Lomellino), Doria-Tursi (the largest), Bianco, Rosso. The first “royal quarter” in the world was born, composed entirely of private residences but built to criteria of public representation.

In later decades the model was replicated: in 1602 work began on Via Balbi (the Balbi family wanted its own representative axis), with Palazzo Reale, the University and Palazzo Balbi-Senarega. Later came the Strada Nuovissima (now Via Cairoli, late seventeenth century) and works on Via San Luca, Piazza Fontane Marose, Piazza delle Fontane Marose. The entire Rolli network occupied the whole arc from west (Via Balbi) to east (Via XXV Aprile) of the nineteenth-century centre of Genoa.

The architects

The Rolli system gave work to an extraordinary generation of architects. Besides Galeazzo Alessi and Bernardino Cantone, those active included:

• Giovanni Battista Castello, known as “Il Bergamasco” (Gandino 1526 – Madrid 1569): architect and painter, author of Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino (Podestà, 1559-1565) and of the Mannerist decorations that shaped Genoese taste.
• Rocco Lurago (Genoa c. 1501 – Genoa 1590): architect of Palazzo Doria-Tursi (1565-1579), the largest of the Rolli, today the seat of the City of Genoa.
• Andrea Vannone (Como c. 1560 – Genoa 1619): author of many late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century palaces, who redesigned Palazzo Ducale after the 1591 fire.
• Domenico and Giovanni Ponzello: brother architects, authors of Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Lercari-Parodi and other Strada Nuova buildings.
• Bartolomeo Bianco (Como c. 1590 – Genoa 1657): author of Palazzo Balbi-Senarega and other palaces of Via Balbi.

Rubens, Antwerp 1622: the Rolli go European

Between 1605 and 1607 the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) lived in Genoa for over a year, working for the Doria, Pallavicino and Spinola families. He was housed in the palaces of Strada Nuova and was deeply struck by the typology of the Genoese palace: monumental entrance bay (atrium), ceremonial staircase, porticoed courtyard, hanging garden, state apartments on the piano nobile. A coherent, rational, reproducible model.

On returning to Antwerp, Rubens decided to publish a book: he commissioned surveys and plans of the main Genoese palaces (probably with the help of local collaborators) and had them engraved by the engraver Nicolaes Rijckmans. The volume came out on 29 May 1622 under the title Palazzi di Genova: 72 plates in the first part, 67 in the second, divided into Modern Palaces and Ancient Palaces.

Rubens’s intention was openly declared: to propose to the wealthy Flemish and Dutch merchants the Genoese model as the standard for the new high-representative bourgeois dwelling. The book had enormous success and spread the Genoese palace type across all of northern Europe. Many Belgian and Dutch residences of the seventeenth century are recognisably inspired by the Rolli. It is a paradigmatic case of how a local architectural model becomes a continental standard thanks to a single book.

The golden seventeenth century of the bankers’ Republic

The Rolli system reached its peak between 1620 and 1648 — the “Seicento of the bankers”. Ever more sumptuous palaces were added to the Strade Nuove. The great fresco cycles in the state rooms — Bernardo Strozzi at Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino (1623-24), Giovanni Carlone at Palazzo Lomellini-Patrone, Valerio Castello at the Royal Palace, Luca Cambiaso at Palazzo Lercari-Parodi — celebrated the deeds of the patron families: wars won by their ancestors, geographical discoveries, diplomatic roles.

With the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and then with the decline of Spanish financial hegemony, the system entered a phase of slow erosion. The Rolli continued to be compiled until 1664, but with decreasing numbers. The Republic itself fell in 1797 with the Napoleonic invasion, and the palaces lost their institutional function. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many were divided into flats, some were demolished, others turned into public offices and banks.

The Strada Nuova Museum and the 2006 UNESCO listing

In the 1930s the City of Genoa began the purchase and restoration of the most important Strada Nuova palaces: Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Rosso and Palazzo Doria-Tursi were turned into civic museums. Franco Albini and Franca Helg carried out their legendary museum-display project between the 1950s and 1960s. The museum system is today known as the Musei di Strada Nuova.

On 13 July 2006 UNESCO inscribed the site “Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the System of the Palazzi dei Rolli” on the World Heritage list, as number 1211. 42 palaces were selected from the five official Rolli lists, considered “examples of Renaissance and Baroque architecture that influenced the evolution of the European aristocratic residential model”. The listing also recognised the urban value of the Strade Nuove as the first European project of a wholly residential, planned quarter.

The Rolli Days

Since 2009 the City of Genoa has organised the Rolli Days: two weekends a year (typically April and October) in which the privately owned palaces of the network open to the public with free guided tours. The initiative was born as an experiment in cultural tourism: in the first year some fifteen palaces took part. In 2015 the Rolli Days surpassed 150,000 visitors in four days, shattering the numbers of the Genoese museum system. Today over sixty palaces take part, including many not listed by UNESCO but equally important.

For those visiting Genoa on the Rolli Days weekends, the experience is unique in Europe: entering private aristocratic palaces still inhabited today, seeing the Rubens-Strozzi-Cambiaso frescoes in their original rooms, climbing marble staircases that few eyes normally see. Visits are free but compulsory online booking is required on the rolliestradenuove.it portal or at the ticket desk.

How to visit the Rolli today

The Rolli divide into three categories of accessibility:

1. Public museums — open year-round with a ticket. Five Rolli are museums:

• Palazzo Reale (Balbi-Durazzo) — Via Balbi 10
• Palazzo Rosso — Via Garibaldi 18
• Palazzo Bianco — Via Garibaldi 11
• Palazzo Doria-Tursi — Via Garibaldi 9
• Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria — Piazza Pellicceria 1

2. Palaces open for guided visits (by booking or during the Rolli Days):

• Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino (Podestà) — Via Garibaldi 7
• Palazzo Lercari-Parodi — Via Garibaldi 3
• Palazzo Lomellini-Patrone — Largo Zecca 2 (Army Command)
• Palazzo Balbi-Senarega (University), the University Royal Palace, Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, Palazzo Pallavicino, and others.

3. Private palaces — visitable only during the Rolli Days or for private events. Many palaces of Via Garibaldi and Via Balbi are today residences or the seats of private offices; they enter the system only during the annual opening.

How to read a Rolli visit

For those who have time for a dedicated itinerary, we recommend spending at least a day on the central Via Garibaldi group:

1. Palazzo Rosso (morning, with its Brignole-Sale gallery and the Van Dyck portraits)
2. Palazzo Bianco (with Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo)
3. Palazzo Doria-Tursi (seat of the City Council, with Paganini’s cannon violin and Columbus’s autograph letter)
4. Lunch in the area, then Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino (if open for Rolli Days) and Palazzo Lercari-Parodi (with caryatids on the façade)
5. Towards evening, Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria in the nearby caruggi

For the second day you can walk Via Balbi with the Royal Palace and the Palace of the University (monumental courtyard).

Practical information

• Where they concentrate: Via Garibaldi (the former Strada Nuova), Via Balbi, Via Cairoli, the caruggi of the old town
• Rolli Days: two weekends a year, April and October. Check exact dates on rolliestradenuove.it
• Strada Nuova museum tickets: full €9, reduced €7. Pass valid for Bianco + Rosso + Doria-Tursi
• Palazzo Spinola: full €6, reduced €3
• Length of a full itinerary: 1-2 days depending on pace
• Official websites: rolliestradenuove.it, palazzideirolli.it