Le Strade Nuove e i Palazzi dei Rolli

Genoa's Strade Nuove—via Garibaldi, via Balbi and via Cairoli—and the Rolli Palaces form a unified sixteenth- and seventeenth-century urban project, inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Why it matters

UNESCO's listing records something structurally novel: the first example in Europe of an urban development project parcelled out by a public authority within a unitary framework, tied to a system of public lodging in private residences. The Republic's Senate decreed in 1576 that noble families would submit their palaces to the rolli, official lists from which lots were drawn each time a distinguished visitor — an ambassador, a cardinal, a prince — needed a fitting place to stay. Hospitality was a tax paid in marble and fresco.

Inscribed in 2006 under criteria (ii) and (iv), the property covers 42 palaces over just under sixteen hectares, with a buffer zone of nearly ninety-nine hectares that embraces the entire historic centre. UNESCO's description credits the design of the streets to Galeazzo Alessi, the period's leading Genoese architect, who also designed several of the palaces.

What to notice

The Strade Nuove comprise via Garibaldi, via Balbi and via Cairoli, whose palaces form a unified urban composition of facades, courtyards, staircases, loggias and gardens. UNESCO describes the palaces as three or four storeys high. Their portals, courtyards and painted salons were designed to express the standing of Genoa's noble families and to receive distinguished guests. Several palaces on via Garibaldi now house civic museums.

Context and history

The inscribed ensemble belongs to what UNESCO calls the Siglo de los Genoveses, the "century of the Genoese" from 1563 to 1640, when the Republic's finance and shipping peaked and its aristocracy poured profits into stone. The Strade Nuove project channelled that wealth: instead of fortress towers, families built residences conceived as a collective stage for state ceremony.

The rolli mechanism is the part most worth retelling. Several lists were drawn up, palaces classified by size and magnificence, and the draw decided who received which guest — an arrangement UNESCO describes as public lodging in private residences, decreed by the Senate in 1576. The system normalised competition in architectural display, which is why the streetscapes hold together: each facade had to keep pace with its neighbours. Rolli Days, established in 2006, are a public programme focused on Genoa's palace heritage.