The Giustiniani Apartments

The apartments

The archived pages describe Palazzo Cicala as offering accommodation in three apartments within Palazzo Giustiniani, on the 1st, 5th and 6th floors, each said to be unique. Shared facilities across the apartments included a TV, mini-bar fridge, free internet and cooking facilities, with daily cleaning and linen/towel changes; buffet breakfast was served at Palazzo Cicala itself rather than on-site.

Palazzo Giustiniani's history

Historically, Palazzo Giustiniani was commissioned by Cardinal Vincenzo Giustiniani Banca, a Dominican friar and patron of the arts who had served as his order's Minister General, taken part in the Council of Trent, and been apostolic nuncio to Spain at the court of Philip II before his elevation to cardinal in 1570. Building work is dated to between about 1550 and 1582, and the palazzo — on what is now Via Giustiniani, in Genoa's historic centre close to San Lorenzo Cathedral — was entered onto the city's official "Rolli", the roll of noble houses required to host visiting dignitaries and heads of state during the era of the Genoese Republic, appearing in Rolli editions compiled between 1576 and 1664. It's this same Rolli system that today underpins Genoa's "Strade Nuove and Palazzi dei Rolli" UNESCO World Heritage listing, centred on Via Garibaldi.

The Giustiniani family held the palazzo for more than three centuries before it passed, by Cardinal Vincenzo's own bequest, to a charitable trust; in 1826 it was acquired to house the personal library of the abbot Paolo Gerolamo Franzoni, first opened to the public in 1749, which is why the building is also known as Palazzo Franzoni and why the Biblioteca Franzoniana operated from it until 1965. The courtyard's monumental atrium and loggia stairwell survive from the original build, alongside frescoed decoration on its Via Chiabrera-facing side; the palazzo underwent a major facade restoration in 2003 as part of Genoa's wider Rolli-palazzi conservation programme, and today serves as the seat of the Fondazione Franzoni, a Genoese cultural foundation. Modern listings for the building still describe it, much like our Duomo apartment a short distance away, as just a few steps from San Lorenzo Cathedral.

As with the Duomo apartment, the archived pages also relay a piece of local legend rather than documented fact: a secret passage said to run from the palazzo to San Lorenzo Cathedral, supposedly still carrying "the whispers of those who failed to reach the safe end."