It’s called Palazzo Rosso (“Red Palace”) for the intense colour of its façade, painted in a minium-red marmorino plaster, at number 18 of Via Garibaldi. It’s the house the brothers Ridolfo and Gio. Francesco Brignole-Sale had built between 1671 and 1677 to display the power of their family of senator-bankers of the Republic, and today it’s one of the richest museums in the city. Donated to the Municipality of Genoa in 1874 by Maria Brignole-Sale De Ferrari, Duchess of Galliera and last descendant, it hosts the family collection: seven paintings by Anthony Van Dyck (including the celebrated equestrian portraits of the Brignole-Sale), Veronese, Guercino, Guido Reni, Bernardo Strozzi, Albrecht Dürer, Mattia Preti. The display is the one signed in the 1960s by Franco Albini — a masterpiece of twentieth-century Italian museography. Together with Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria-Tursi it makes up the Musei di Strada Nuova. Inscribed as one of the 42 Palazzi dei Rolli on the UNESCO list since 13 July 2006.
Where it is
The address is Via Giuseppe Garibaldi 18, 16124 Genova, in the heart of the old town, on the Strada Nuova — the street opened in 1551 over the medieval layout to house the residences of the most powerful families of the Republic, which between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became the “street of kings”: a canyon of noble palaces side by side, each more sumptuous than the next, in 250 metres of road.
On foot: two minutes from Palazzo Bianco / Pinacoteca Civica (at number 11 on the same street), two minutes from Palazzo Doria-Tursi (at number 9, seat of the City Hall), five minutes from Palazzo Ducale, six minutes from the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, eight minutes from Piazza De Ferrari. The De Ferrari underground stop is 350 metres away.
The museum entrance is through the monumental portal on Via Garibaldi, with access to the inner courtyard (free, always open), and from there to the combined Musei di Strada Nuova ticket. The joint ticket (Palazzo Rosso + Palazzo Bianco + Palazzo Doria-Tursi) is highly recommended: three palaces a few metres apart, one visit covering four centuries of Genoese painting and decorative arts.
The Brignole-Sale and the construction (1671-1677)
The Brignole-Sale were one of the most powerful families of the Genoese Republic in the seventeenth century. Originally from eastern Liguria (Brignole) and related to the Sale family (hence the double surname), they were great bankers and financiers, with presences in Madrid, Brussels, Vienna, Rome. Several members of the family held public offices of the highest level — Doge, ambassadors, senators — between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
The brothers Ridolfo and Gio. Francesco Brignole-Sale commissioned in 1671 the architect Pier Antonio Corradi to build a new residence at number 18 of Via Garibaldi, next to the Palazzo di Maria Durazzo Brignole-Sale (future Palazzo Bianco) belonging to another branch of the family. The new construction was completed in 1677 in Baroque style: a three-storey façade with giant Corinthian pilasters, minium-red plaster (hence the name) that was to make the palace immediately recognisable as a family brand, state rooms on the first piano nobile, library on the second floor, private apartments on the third.
The interior decoration was entrusted to the best Baroque Genoese artists: Domenico Piola, Gregorio De Ferrari, Bartolomeo Guidobono, Domenico Parodi frescoed the halls with mythological, allegorical, religious cycles. The rooms largely still preserve the original decorations — marble floors, gilded stuccoes, frescoed ceilings, seventeenth-century furnishings — and form an almost unique example in Italy of a Baroque palace with uninterrupted historical installation.
Maria Brignole-Sale De Ferrari, Duchess of Galliera
The history of the palace changed definitively with Maria Brignole-Sale De Ferrari, Duchess of Galliera (Genoa 1811 — Paris 1888): the last heir of the Brignole-Sale, married to Duke Raffaele De Ferrari di Galliera (one of the richest men in mid-nineteenth-century Europe, financier and patron), Maria was one of the great European philanthropists of her century. Living between Genoa, Paris and Vienna, she financed hospitals, schools, nurseries and public infrastructure with a patronage comparable to that of the contemporary Rothschilds.
In her mature years, she decided to donate the family palaces to the Municipality of Genoa. Palazzo Rosso was donated in 1874 with all its art collections (over 600 paintings, sculptures, furnishings, books, manuscripts); Palazzo Bianco followed in 1884, after her death. Maria Brignole-Sale’s donations form the original nucleus of the civic collections of ancient art of the city, and are among the greatest acts of public patronage of nineteenth-century Italy.
The Van Dyck Brignole-Sale portraits
The most celebrated piece of the Palazzo Rosso collection is the group of seven paintings by Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) executed during the Flemish master’s Genoese sojourn (1621-1627). Van Dyck, a pupil of Rubens, stayed in Genoa for seven years in his twenties and was the favourite painter of the great city aristocracy of the seventeenth century: his Genoese portraits are among the masterpieces of European Baroque, and Genoa preserves the largest number in the world (over 30 between Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Spinola, private collections and other holdings).
At Palazzo Rosso you’ll find in particular:
- Equestrian Portrait of Anton Giulio Brignole-Sale (c. 1627): perhaps the most celebrated. The young Genoese senator (Van Dyck’s patron) is portrayed on horseback in the dramatic pose of a condottiere, against a backdrop of monumental architecture.
- Portrait of Paolina Adorno Brignole-Sale (c. 1627): the wife of Anton Giulio, portrayed standing in an elegant black silk dress, with a greyhound at her side. One of the masterpieces of Van Dyckian female portraiture.
- Portrait of Geronima Sale-Brignole with her daughter: a family portrait of great compositional tenderness.
- Three male portraits of family members (Gio. Vincenzo Imperiale, others).
- Christ of the Coin: a religious canvas of evangelical subject.
The Brignole-Sale portraits are studied worldwide as models of aristocratic Baroque portraiture. Here Van Dyck takes up the formulas of Rubens (equestrian scenes, architectural backdrops, elegance of fabrics) but radicalises them psychologically: his subjects have a marked individuality, an almost tangible physical presence, an inner light that makes them unmistakable. Some of these portraits have inspired entire generations of painters (from Reynolds to Sargent).
The other works
The Palazzo Rosso collection includes numerous other masterpieces of Italian and European painting between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries:
- Veronese (Paolo Caliari), Judith beheading Holofernes (c. 1580): a biblical painting of great compositional power.
- Guido Reni, Saint Sebastian (c. 1620): a celebrated interpretation of the martyr saint, with Caravaggesque light filtered through Bolognese elegance.
- Guercino, Cleopatra stabbing herself: a dramatic scene painted in the artist’s maturity.
- Bernardo Strozzi, The Cook: one of the most singular works of Genoese Seicento painting, an almost Caravaggesque genre scene, with the cook caught in a moment of daily work.
- Albrecht Dürer, Christ among the Doctors (1506): an early sixteenth-century panel, executed during the German master’s Italian sojourn.
- Mattia Preti, Christ and the Samaritan Woman: an evangelical scene from the painter’s late Neapolitan period.
- Works by Domenico Piola, Gregorio De Ferrari, Bernardo Castello, Domenico Fiasella, and other great masters of the Genoese school between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
The rooms of the palace also preserve original furnishings of great value — inlaid furniture, period tapestries, crystal chandeliers, Oriental porcelains — that bear witness to the lifestyle of the Genoese aristocracy of the seventeenth century.
Franco Albini’s installation
Between 1952 and 1962, the Municipality of Genoa entrusted the museological reorganisation of Palazzo Rosso (and of Palazzo Bianco) to the Rationalist architect Franco Albini (1905-1977), joined by his collaborator Franca Helg. Albini’s intervention is considered one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century Italian museography, on a par with those of Carlo Scarpa at Castelvecchio (Verona) and BBPR at the Museo del Castello Sforzesco (Milan).
Albini’s idea is explicit: preserve the historical environment of the palace in full (decorations, furniture, ceilings) and add lighting and walking-path installations that underline its values without interfering. Artworks are lit with spot lights, furniture is integrated into the route without intrusive display cases, the rooms are left to breathe. The visitor has the impression of walking through an inhabited palace — the house of the Brignole-Sale of 1670 — not a museum in the nineteenth-century sense of the term.
Albini’s intervention was also technical: on the panoramic terrace on the top floor (on the roof, still visitable today and with breathtaking views over the old town) he built a small director’s apartment in Rationalist style — a modernist studio flat that sits inside the Baroque palace without any mimesis. It’s a detail you discover only towards the end of the visit, and one that has become a symbol of the entire installation.
The Musei di Strada Nuova
Since 1956, Palazzo Rosso has formed, together with Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria-Tursi, the network of the Musei di Strada Nuova: three palaces a few metres apart, managed as a single system, with a combined ticket. The visit to the three palaces takes half a day to a full day and is considered one of the richest art experiences in Italy. The unified route follows the evolution of Genoese and European painting from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, passing through the original aristocratic settings of the Republic.
The three palaces together constitute the initial nucleus of the 2006 UNESCO inscription: the Palazzi dei Rolli are 42 in total, but the three Musei di Strada Nuova are the most important for public accessibility and the artistic heritage they hold.
Practical information
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 9:00–19:00, Saturday–Sunday 10:00–19:30, last entry one hour before closing. Closed non-holiday Mondays, 25 December, 1 January.
Musei di Strada Nuova tickets (combined for Palazzo Rosso + Bianco + Doria-Tursi):
- Full adult: €9
- Reduced (over-65s, 18–25 years, groups): €7
- Free under 18, on the first Sunday of the month, for Genoa residents, for Genova Museum Card holders
Contacts: telephone +39 010 5572193, official website museidigenova.it (Musei di Strada Nuova section). Guided tours, audio guides and educational activities available. The palace is fully accessible to visitors with reduced mobility (lifts to all floors).
What’s nearby
The three Musei di Strada Nuova are side by side: after visiting Palazzo Rosso, it’s only natural to step into Palazzo Bianco too (at number 11), with its Caravaggio Ecce Homo and European painting gallery, and into Palazzo Doria-Tursi (at number 9, today the Town Hall) with the Paganini’s Cannon violin.
5–10 minutes away on foot: Palazzo Spinola (Antonello da Messina, Rubens), the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Palazzo Ducale. Towards the port, the Aquarium, the Bigo + Biosphere in 10 minutes.
For lunch or dinner nearby: Klainguti in Piazza Soziglia (Verdi’s favourite 1828 pastry shop, 3 minutes away), Marescotti in Via Fossatello (1780), Sa Pesta for savoury vegetable pies, Zeffirino on Via XX Settembre (10 minutes). For an evening aperitivo, Les Rouges in Piazza Campetto, Jenoir in the caruggi.
