Between the historic centre and the Porto Antico, under the elevated urban motorway, opens Piazza Caricamento: the ancient space where goods unloaded from the port were loaded onto carts, today a transit junction between the medieval city and the Renzo Piano-designed waterfront area. On the square rises the monumental Palazzo San Giorgio, built between 1257 and 1260 by the Capitano del Popolo Guglielmo Boccanegra (in carica 1256-1262) to the design of the Cistercian Friar Oliverio: a building composed of a medieval part (towards Sottoripa) and a Renaissance one (towards the sea, with a frescoed façade recently restored). According to tradition, it was in the prisons of this palace that Marco Polo — captured by the Genoese in the Battle of Curzola of 1298 — dictated the Milione to his cellmate Rustichello da Pisa. From 1407 the palace was the seat of the Bank of San Giorgio, considered the oldest bank in the world, founded by order of French marshal Boucicault. Today it is the seat of the Port System Authority.
Where it is
The address is Piazza Caricamento, 16128 Genoa. The square lies right beneath the elevated road (the great raised road built in the 1960s that crosses the sea-front), and forms the link between the historic centre (Sottoripa, Via San Lorenzo) and the Porto Antico.
On foot: three minutes from the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, five from the Aquarium, three from the Bigo+Biosphere, seven from Palazzo Ducale. The San Giorgio AMT metro stop is under the square.
Access to the square is free, always, at no cost. Palazzo San Giorgio is partly visitable (Sala del Capitano del Popolo, Sala delle Compere, council hall) during special events and guided visits organised by the Port System Authority.
Palazzo San Giorgio: Boccanegra and Friar Oliverio (1260)
Palazzo San Giorgio is one of the oldest civil buildings of Genoa still standing. It was built between 1257 and 1260 by order of Guglielmo Boccanegra, first Capitano del Popolo of the Genoese Republic — a political figure created in those years to give greater stability to the government after the factional struggles (Mascherati and Rampini, forerunners of the later Guelphs and Ghibellines).
The commission was entrusted to Friar Oliverio, a Cistercian monk expert in civil constructions. The Cistercians, in the 12th–13th centuries, were among the main religious orders providing technical and architectural expertise for the great European public and private building sites.
The original palace was an imposing medieval architecture in Romanesque-Gothic style, with great pointed arches, exposed-stone walling, guard towers. It was organised as a government palace: there took place the meetings of the Capitano del Popolo and his council, there were the administrative offices of the Republic, there were stored the public documents.
Of the original medieval part are preserved today the internal walls and part of the spatial organisation, while the external appearance has been profoundly modified by the subsequent Renaissance renovations.
Marco Polo, prisoner (1298–1299)
1298 is a crucial year for Genoa: the Genoese fleet led by Lamba Doria defeats at Curzola (off Dalmatia, today’s island of Korčula in Croatia) the Venetian fleet of Doge Andrea Dandolo. It is one of the most important naval victories in the history of the Genoese Republic.
Among the thousands of Venetian prisoners brought to Genoa after the battle there is — according to the tradition handed down by chroniclers — a young Venetian merchant already famous for his Asian travels: Marco Polo (Venice 1254 — 1324). Marco had returned to Venice in 1295 after his 24 years of travel in Asia (Kublai Khan’s China, Cipangu/Japan, India, Persia), and in 1298 took part as captain of a galley in the Venetian campaign against Genoa.
Captured at Curzola, Marco was brought to Genoa and imprisoned in the cells of Palazzo San Giorgio for about a year (1298–1299). During imprisonment, according to tradition, he shared the cell with another detainee — the Pisan Rustichello da Pisa, writer of chivalric romances in French — to whom he told his journeys and experiences.
Rustichello put in writing in Old French (the European literary language of the time) Marco’s narrations — thus was born the book today known as “Il Milione” (the Italian posthumous title) or “Le Devisement du Monde” (the original French title). It is one of the most important works of European medieval literature, and would contribute decisively to forming European imagination of Asia for centuries.
Marco Polo was freed in 1299 after a peace treaty between Genoa and Venice, and returned to his city where he would live another 25 years. Palazzo San Giorgio remains linked to his memory as a symbolic place of the birth of the Milione.
It should be clarified: the historical documentation of Marco Polo’s imprisonment in Genoa is based on late sources (14th- and 15th-century chroniclers), and some modern historians question the precise identification of the place of imprisonment. But Genoese tradition — and most historical studies — places the event in Palazzo San Giorgio.
The Bank of San Giorgio (1407)
In 1407, during the French occupation of Genoa (the city was under the government of marshal Boucicault, governor for Charles VI of France), the Banco delle Compere di San Giorgio — later known as the Bank of San Giorgio — was established at Palazzo San Giorgio.
The institution was born to unify the numerous “compere” (consortia of state creditors) that the Republic had accumulated in previous decades. Each compera was a kind of public company whose members had lent money to the State in exchange for rights of collection on specific taxes. The Bank of San Giorgio grouped these compere into a single great financial organisation.
From that moment the Bank of San Giorgio became one of the most powerful financial institutions in Europe and one of the oldest banks in the world still active (it would exist until 1805, when suppressed by Napoleon). Its seat at Palazzo San Giorgio became the financial heart of the Republic for over four centuries.
The Bank managed the Genoese public debt, financed colonial enterprises (the colonies of Caffa in the Black Sea, Pera in Constantinople, Corsica), lent money to European sovereigns and merchants. Its influence was such that the famous philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli in the Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio (1517) described it as “a State within the State”.
The frescoed façade
The current external appearance of the palace — in particular the seaward façade, the one seen today facing the square from the port side — dates from an important Renaissance renovation. The façade is completely frescoed with allegorical scenes, portraits of benefactors, coats of arms of Genoese patrician families, geometric motifs. The chromatic effect is notable: the tones of gold, azure, white of the figures stand out against the palace’s white-pink façade.
The façade has been the subject of important restorations in recent decades. The last complete restoration (2010s–2020s) restored the luminosity of the frescoes, reconnected the original colours, gave back the palace its sixteenth-century appearance.
The elevated road (1963)
In 1963 the Sopraelevata stradale was opened, the great road artery that crosses Piazza Caricamento above street level, connecting Genova Ovest (motorway exit towards the port) with Foce (eastern area of Corso Italia). The Sopraelevata was designed to decongest traffic in the historic centre — the 1960s were the era of the automobile boom, and Genoa needed new fast arteries.
The work is controversial: on one hand it effectively freed the historic centre from through traffic; on the other it created a visual and physical barrier between the historic centre and the sea-front. The Sopraelevata “cuts in half” the relationship between city and port — one of the main urbanistic problems of Genoa in the second half of the twentieth century.
In recent decades long discussion has taken place about the possible removal of the Sopraelevata (to restore urbanistic continuity between centre and port), but the project has not yet been realised for reasons of cost and traffic management. The Sopraelevata remains, and is by now part of the urban skyline of the area.
The palace today
Palazzo San Giorgio is today the seat of the Port System Authority of the Western Ligurian Sea — the public body that manages the ports of Genoa, Savona-Vado and Pra’-Voltri. Inside the interiors take place the administrative activities of the port authority, operational meetings, commercial negotiations of the maritime sector.
Some historic rooms of the palace — in particular the Sala del Capitano del Popolo and the Sala delle Compere — are accessible to the public on the occasion of special events (FAI Days, exhibitions, conferences, presentations). The rooms preserve furnishings, paintings, coats of arms of historic compere and of consuls of the Bank. For those interested in European financial history, they are environments of extraordinary documentary value.
Practical information
Access to the square: free and at no cost, accessible 24 hours a day. The square is a transit zone between the historic centre and the Porto Antico, always busy.
Palazzo San Giorgio interiors: not regularly visitable as the seat of Port System Authority offices. Access is possible on the occasion of public events, exhibitions, FAI Heritage Days. For information: portsofgenoa.com or through the city tourist portal.
Transport: the San Giorgio AMT metro stop (green line) is under the square. All bus lines serving the Porto Antico make stops or transit at Caricamento.
What’s around
Piazza Caricamento is in a strategic position, at the crossroads of all the city’s tourist flows. A few minutes away the Aquarium, the Bigo+Biosphere, the Porto Antico area. Towards the historic centre in a few minutes the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, the Spinola Gallery, Palazzo Ducale.
For those wanting a Marco Polo and mercantile-history itinerary: Palazzo San Giorgio (symbolic place of the Milione) → Piazza Banchi and Loggia dei Mercanti (Genoese finance of the 14th–15th century) → Galata Maritime Museum (ten minutes on foot, the maritime epic). It is a route recounting coherently the mercantile and maritime dimension of the Republic.
For lunch or dinner nearby: I Tre Merli at the Magazzini del Cotone (Porto Antico, 5 minutes), Il Marin Michelin-starred at Eataly (Edificio Millo, 5 minutes), Sa Pesta in the caruggi (5 minutes), Antica Friggitoria Carega in Sottoripa (3 minutes).
