Palazzo San Giorgio

History

The palace was built between 1257 and 1260 on commission of the capitano del popolo Guglielmo Boccanegra who thus intended to create his own seat for civil power, distinct from that of religious power, established near the Genoa Cathedral.

The project of the new public building, as recalled by a plaque affixed to the façade facing the city, was entrusted to Friar Oliverio, a monk from the Abbey of Sant'Andrea in Sestri Ponente, who had previously designed the extension to the sea of the Old Pier.

The palace was built in what was then the main landmark of the city, the seaside portico of Sottoripa, which at that time was the economic center of the city. The new palace, located in the center of this portico, was built next to the terminal of the roof of the Soziglia stream, then recently channeled into an underground route under the current via Luccoli, piazza Soziglia, via Orefici, piazza Banchi, via al Ponte Reale.

The newly built palace was the seat of the Municipality for only two years; in 1262, Boccanegra was deposed and forced into exile in France, where he was appointed governor of Aigues-Mortes by Louis IX, a position he held until upon his death, in 1273 (or 1274). After Boccanegra's fall, the Municipality had a temporary seat for some years, until at the end of the century it settled in the requisite Alberto Fieschi's palace in Serravalle, the building from which the current Doge's Palace developed.

In the second half of the 13th century the palace also housed the prisons in which Marco Polo was held, having fallen prisoner of the Genoese during the Battle of Curzola in 1298. During the period of detention, which lasted almost a year, he dictated to his fellow prisoner Rustichello da Pisa his travel memoirs which were later published as The Travels of Marco Polo.

Starting from 1290, part of the chains of Porto Pisano were placed on the external porticoes of the building. …

Description

The palace today presents itself in a dual aspect: towards the Ripa portico the thirteenth-century building, in exposed red bricks and stone base, and the sixteenth-century wing extending towards the port, with painted plaster.

The eastern part, overlooking the Sottoripa palace, is the medieval one, dating back to 1260, which we see today in its nineteenth-century renovation; in squared gray Promontorio stone on the ground floor and exposed brick on the upper floors, crowned by Ghibelline battlements, it has a portico at its base formed by five pointed arches supported by four columns and a pillar at each end. The façade, lightened by three-light and four-light windows, is devoid of ornaments: there was once a fresco painted at the end of the 15th century by Carlo Braccesco, known as "Carlo del Mantegna", depicting "Saint George and the Dragon". Of this painting, still well preserved in the eighteenth century, traces still remained before the nineteenth-century restorations, as attested by several authors of the time.

The entrance portal opens through the central arch of the portico, which was the main one of the building until 1912, when the new entrance on the sea side was opened. Above the portal there is a mascaron of a lion figure, and two other small lion heads can be seen on the corners on the sides of the portico; these small sculptures, in Gothic style but with ancient Greek influences, came from the representative palace of the Venetians in Constantinople, known as the Pantocrator, which the Genoese had obtained from the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos for the help given against the Eastern Latin Empire and decided in the Treaty of Nymphaeum. Next to the entrance is the plaque celebrating the foundation of the building.

The 16th-century wing overlooks Via della Mercanzia, with the façade entirely covered with frescoes by Raimondo Sirotti which reflect those created at the beginning of the 20th century by Ludovico Pogliaghi, who in turn had redone and reinterpreted the originals by Tavarone. …