Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second EditionHutton, Edward
History
Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition
Hutton, Edward
Art -- Italy -- Florence; Genoa (Italy) -- History; Tuscany (Italy) -- Description and travel
Within, the church was altered in 1530 by Montorsoli, the Florentine who
was brought from Florence by the Admiral. And there above the high altar
hangs his sword, given him by Pope Paul III, his friend and enemy.
There, too, in the left aisle is the Doria chapel, with a picture of
Andrea and his wife kneeling before our Lord. In the crypt, which was
decorated in stucco by Montorsoli, you may see his tomb.
Questo e quel Doria, che fa dai Pirati
Sicuro il vostro mar per tutti i lati.
The beautiful cloister contains the statues of Andrea and Giovandrea,
broken by the people in 1797. Close by is the Doria Palace, given by the
Republic to Andrea when he refused the office of Doge. It is decorated
with the privileged black and white marble, and bears the inscription,
_Senat. Cons. Andreae de Oria Patriae Liberatori Munus Publicium_.
If you return from S. Matteo to the Piazza Deferrari and then follow the
Via Carlo Felice (and without some sort of guidance such as this you are
like to be lost in the maze of the city) on your way to the beautiful
Piazza Fontane Marose, you pass on your left the Palazzo Pallavicini,
empty now of all its treasures.
On your right as you enter this square of palaces is the Palazzo della
Casa, once the Palazzo Spinola, decorated with the black and white
marble, built in the early part of the fifteenth century, in the place
where the old tower of that great family once stood. It is the palace of
the oldest Genoese family, and the statues in the facade represent the
most famous members of the clan, as Oberto, the son of the founder of
this branch of the race, the Luccoli Spinola, Conrado, who ruled the
city in 1206, and Opizino, who married his daughter to Theodore
Paleologus, Emperor of Constantinople, and lived like a king and was
banished in 1309. The palace itself is said to have been built with the
remains of the Fieschi palace which the Senate destroyed in 1336. Beyond
it rise the Palazzo Negrone and the Palazzo Pallavicini, while opposite
the Negrone Palace the Via Nuova, now called Via Garibaldi (for the
Italians have a bad habit of renaming their old streets), opens, a vista
of palaces, where all the greatness and splendour of Genoa rise up
before you in houses of marble, and courtyards musical with fountains,
walls splendid with frescoes, and rooms full of pictures.
Before passing into this street of palaces, however, the traveller
should follow the difficult Salita di S. Caterina, which climbs between
Palazzo della Casa and Palazzo Negrone towards the Acqua Sola, that
lovely garden, passing on his way the old Palazzo Spinola, where many an
old and precious canvas still hangs on the walls, and the spoiled
frescoes of the beautiful portico are fading in the sun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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