Palazzo Reale di GENOVA

The Royal Palace or Palazzo Stefano Balbi is part of an important seventeenth-eighteenth century architectural complex in Genoese Baroque style, of which the representative interiors are preserved intact, from frescoes to stuccos, from paintings to furnishings. The construction of the palace was started by Stefano Balbi and continued by his son Giovanni Battista, whose powerful family - that of the Balbis - was the architect of the planning and construction process of the other buildings on the street known as "Strada degli Signori Balbi" .
The construction of the original palace took place between 1643 and 1650. As soon as construction was finished, the Balbis called some of the most important frescoes of the time for the decoration of the internal halls, such as the Genoese Valerio Castello and Giovan Battista Carlone, and the Bolognese Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli. In 1677 the Balbi family sold the palace to the Durazzo family who expanded it with the incorporation of a nearby building. In 1702 the palace, despite being registered in the second block of the roll of 1664, hosted the King of Spain Philip IV. The palace was then handed over to the House of Savoy which following the restoration had annexed the Republic of Genoa to the Kingdom of Sardinia. King Carlo Felice of Savoy used it as an official residence mainly in the summer months. Following the purchase, some of the most important paintings from the Durazzo collection were transferred to Turin, including Tintoretto's Trinity, Van Dyck's Holy Family and the famous Supper in Simone's House by Paolo Veronese, replaced by a copy. In 1842, on the occasion of the wedding of Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy and Maria Adelaide, the royal family commissioned the Genoese set designer Michele Canzio to transform some rooms, such as the Throne and Audience rooms and the Ballroom, to adapt them to new needs of representation. The apartments on the first noble floor were also renovated and redecorated by the main Genoese artists. With the transfer of the capital to Rome, the palace was less and less frequented by the royal family, until in 1919 it was finally sold by Vittorio Emanuele III and became state property. It was then decided to transform it into a museum.