Doria was not content with obtaining the greater part of the Fieschi feuds. He insisted upon the destruction of the sumptuous palace in Vialata and it was razed to the foundations. The work of demolition was conducted with such angry haste that a great part of the walls fell into the gardens of Ambrogio Gazella and the Republic paid for the removal of the rubbish. A slab of infamy was affixed to a wall near the ruins bearing a decree that nothing should ever be built upon the ground where a citizen had conspired against his country. The inscription no longer exists. The tables now in Vialata refer to rights of private property. Merciful time has cancelled the records of infamy against Gianluigi, though he has preserved them against the names of Vacchero, Raggio, Della Torre and Balbi.[48] The stone (as we find in a decree of 1715) was torn down, not by order of the Doge but by unknown hands, about 1712, perhaps by some of Gianluigi’s relatives.
Ancient tradition tells us that the marbles of the Fieschi palace were employed to embellish that of the Spinola which was erected on the ruins of the tower of the Luccoli. It is that edifice faced with alternate black and white marbles which stands on the piazza Fontane Morose. We know not whether the tradition be true, but it is certain that the statues in the palace of Spinola pertain to the family of its owners. The stones and marbles of Vialata were bought at auction by one Antonio Roderio and were scattered. The sculptures and other ornaments of the magnificent fountain which adorned the garden shared the same fate. They were the work of Giovanni Maria di Pasalo who, not having been entirely paid for his work by Fieschi, received some compensation from the Republic. The government took possession of the furniture and precious vessels which the palace contained not excepting the silver service which according to a memoir of Count Gianluigi Mario to the king of France (preserved in Beriana) was valued at one hundred thousand crowns.
Nothing remains of the splendid residence of the counts but a narrow subterranean passage whose architecture is of the fifteenth century. The walls are brick and it is covered with slate. Time and damp have nearly destroyed it. A branch of it once extended to the sea where the battery of Cava was afterwards erected, but not a vestige of this part now remains. The principal passage led to the valley of Bisagno, outside the gate of the Archi, and served for a means of retreat from the city in times of revolution. It is probable that this passage furnished Gianluigi with the means of introducing into the city, a few days before the insurrection, the armed men from his castles.
The imperial party were not content with the ruins of the Fieschi palace, but wished to destroy all the monuments of the family’s greatness. Two houses fronting the cathedral were appropriated for the debts of Fieschi and thus escaped ruin. The very churches were not spared. The arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat which Lorenzo Fieschi had placed in Santo Stefano in 1499 when Donato Benci, a Florentine sculptor and architect, executed some works in that church, were now removed. Throughout the Eastern Riviera, the Doria faction glutted their vengeance upon the dwellings and castles of the Fieschi. In Chiavari they publicly tore down and threw into the sea an inscription which attributed the foundation of the church of St. Giovanni to Bardone Fieschi.
Nor were the Dorias alone in hastening the destruction of the Fieschi palace. The Sauli whose quarrel with the Fieschi we have mentioned, had seen with envious eyes the erection of a palace in their neighbourhood which outshone the splendour of their own, and they were ambitious of being sole masters of the hill of Carignano. There were other stimulants to vengeance. Popular legends tell us (and we count legends more valuable than the breath which scatters them) that the Sauli family attended divine service in the church of the Fieschi in Vialata. One day Bendinelli Sauli, in a friendly manner asked the Fieschi to delay the service a little in order that his people might be present. The Fieschi responded:—“If you wish to hear mass at your pleasure, build a church of your own.” Sauli remembered the discourteous speech and, in 1481, bequeathed two hundred and fifty shares in the bank of St. George to be left at interest for sixty years and then expended in erecting a magnificent church and two hospitals in Carignano.
The descendants of Bendinello, stimulated by old and new antipathies, were gratified witnesses of the destruction of the mansion of their rivals, and near it they erected the church which commemorated the bequest of their ancestor. As soon as the palace of the Fieschi was destroyed, Galeazzo Alessi was called to Genoa and in 1552 he commenced the church of Carignano. The superb basilica cost the Sauli a hundred thousand gold crowns. It would be a perfect monument to their wealth and public spirit, if the front were not disfigured by some statues of inferior workmanship. They embellished their vengeance by a beautiful christian charity which survives the antipathies out of which it grew. Stefano Sauli, a descendant of Bendinello, bequeathed another large legacy to construct the massive bridge which conducts to the church and unites the two hills.
But public and private wrath did not fully attain their end. A beautiful picture of Gianluigi and portraits of Verrina and Sacco escaped the vandalism of their enemies. In the dark and narrow chapel of the cathedral near the tomb of the Fieschi family, there is a picture painted by Luca Cambiaso representing the protectors of Genoa, St. John the Baptist, St. Lawrence and St. George. In the face of the last saint you have the features of Gianluigi, and tradition tell us that the others are Sacco and Verrina.
It did not occur to Andrea Doria, when he was destroying every trace of his rival, that the love of friends would entrust the image of the dead to the holy guardianship of the altar.