The Palazzo Pallavicini was the suburban residence of the banker of the Court of Rome, but he was a sort of renegade financier, for he went off to England with the churchly funds and became an English country gentleman, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His “past” was known, for some poet-historian of the time branded him with the following couplet:—
“Sir Horatio Palvasene,
Who robbed the Pope to pay the Queen.”
The Villa Doria at Pegli was a work of Canzio built for one of the richest merchants of Genoa in the days of Charles V. It was, like its contemporaries, a gorgeous establishment, but in popular fancy it enjoys not a whit of the enthusiasm bestowed upon the stagy, tricky bric-à-brac and stucco Villa Pallavicini.
The entrance to “Genoa la Superba” by road from the west is a sorry spectacle, a grim, crowded thoroughfare decidedly workaday and none too cleanly. From San Pier d’Arena one comes immediately within the confines of Genoa itself, just after circling the western port and passing the sky-piercing “La Lanterna,” one of the most ancient lighthouses extant, dating from 1547.
Palazzo Doria, Genoa
Genoa is neglected or ignored by most travellers and searchers after the picturesque in Italy. This is a mistake, for Genoa’s park of Acquasola, the gardens of the Villa Rosazza and of the Villa de Negroni, and the terraces of the Palazzo Doria offer as enchanting a series of panoramas as those of Rome or Florence, and quite different, in that they have always the vista of the blue Mediterranean as a background.